Miss Rhythm: The Autobiography of Ruth Brown, Rhythm and Blues Legend

The personal story of Tony Award-winner Ruth Brown recounts the origins of such hit songs as "Mamma, He Treats Your Daughter Mean" and describes her role in the careers of such artists as Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder.

Born in 1928, Brown was one of the top female rhythm-and-blues singers by the 1950s, recording for Atlantic Records, a company that made a fortune from her hits, such as "Teardrops from My Eyes," but paid her practically no royalties. In the 1960s, after three disastrous marriages, her career flagged and she supported herself and her two sons by working as a teacher's aid, a bus driver and a housekeeper. A chance encounter with Redd Foxx in the mid-1970s led to a comeback that included the part of Motormouth Maybelle in the movie Hairspray, a Tony Award-winning performance in the Broadway show Black and Blue and a Grammy Award-winning album, Blues on Broadway. Since her career was reignited, Brown has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She has also recovered some of her Atlantic royalties and works for royalty reform through the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. She and Yule (Fast Fade) tell the story of her colorful life in boisterous detail, from her childhood in Virginia and North Carolina-where she got her musical training through singing spirituals in a church choir-to her present renewed fame. Photos.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Brown's rise was not uncommon. A small-town Southern girl begins to sing in church and "coloreds-only" USO shows, gets discovered, and is offered a recording contract. In Brown's case the record company is newcomer Atlantic, soon to become the premier R&B label of the 1950s and 1960s. Brown's string of hits over a ten-year period caused Atlantic to be known as the House that Ruth Brown Built. But after the hits stopped and she was forced to earn her living at a series of menial jobs, she realized how the accepted accounting procedures of the day had diverted huge sums from the artist to the record companies. Through the efforts of Brown and others, the companies were forced into a settlement that led to the establishment of the Rhythm & Blues Foundation for the support of early artists. Brown's career, currently enjoying a successful revival, is an important slice of the history of the music business. For public libraries.
Dan Bogey, Clearfield Cty. P.L. Federation, Curwensville, Pa.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.