Stop Sleeping - Etta James

Last Friday (January 20th, 2012) surprised me.

I was caught off guard when I read that Etta James had passed away. Last I heard, she was released from the hospital and going to make a full recovery and live for fucking ever. Hearing that someone died after hearing they were on the mend sucks balls. Even worse, I have thought about her quite a lot since learning of her recent illness. I'm not a religious man by any sense of the word, but I threw my appreciation for her into the wind hoping she'd get the Fuck out the funk more in the past month than I have in the past ten years.

I think what I was most weirded out about was the few things most people recognize Etta James for. You say Etta James and people either mention the old wedding or jewelry commercial standby At Last, a sample in a recent Pitbull track, or that Le7els track that Del loves so much.

None of you have ever listened to Etta James on your own? None of you pressed play yourself? Your ONLY experience with her is what was forced on you?

I'm not being a fucking music snob when I say this, or looking down my nose at you, but seriously, that fucking sucks. You've never listened to Etta James before?

Etta James is so fucking much more than an advertisement soundtrack, or your wedding song, or a song from a shitty rapper, or a hook from some bork dance tune. Etta James was the first woman to ever give me goosebumps by singing (no, pleading) one word: Surrender. Etta James took a simple "whoa" and turned it into a growl that could both stab a soul in the balls and arouse a withering penis to the brink of orgasm. Etta James could hum and it would cause people to stand on their feet, wave their hands in the air and then brag about it the morning after. Etta James was the effortless dismantling of a two timing husband with a shake of the finger. Etta James was the perfect victim of a wrong doing, but then the perfect fucking hero who rises out of the lies and drama and fucking demands people take note.

Etta James was the protagonist in song writing that, if drawn as a cartoon, would be holding a fucking battle axe and a highball glass, wearing pearls and a leopard carcass shawl. She was strength and calm and anger and power and fight and flee and a huge fucking middle finger all at once.

No one else my age or younger seems to have a huge part of their appreciation for music with a huge fucking void in it right now. Whether or not you realize it, there fucking is. People need to motherfucking rekkanize.

I'm not talking about the people playing the role of "Oh ____ died, now I gotta go listen to everything s/he ever did and feign sadness.".

I'm not even talking about the people who immediately make jokes. I'm saying, seriously, without even the smallest hint of humor: You need to feel about Etta James the way people who love Etta James feel about Etta James. And it doesn't matter if you doubt you'd love all her music, shit I don't love all her music, regardless you will fucking love Etta James.

Whenever Etta James comes on the radio and I'm around my pops, he holds his hand over his chest and says "Oh, that's Etta.", it doesn't matter how many times you hear her, she stops you in your fucking tracks. I think I was in 8th grade when I first realized what it was that Etta made me feel.

Etta James made me feel like there was nothing else I should be listening to. Her voice is not only classic, it's fucking classic as Fuck.

Stop sleeping on Etta James. Just because she passed away, and is probably fucking trending on twitter, don't do it because everyone else is doing it. Do it because Etta James is fucking amazing.

And if you need a push in the direction of what to start with as far as the Etta James catalog, start here: