"I remember being with my mother
at times as a young person singing at church," she says. "I
remember the work that we did -- the sharecropping, working for the
landowners in the cotton field -- I remember singing anything by Sam
Cooke, Booker T. and the MG's. And I remember my sisters listening to
Little Richard and Chuck Berry. I remember going to see my first
movie in Arcadia. My brothers dropped me off at the movie theater so
that I could watch Elvis Presley in Love Me Tender. I went up
to the balcony; you couldn't go downstairs if you were black. It
didn't bother me; I was just a little kid. I sat there all day long.
I saw that movie over and over and over again. My brother came back
for me, and he couldn't believe that I'd stayed in the theater that
long. I didn't know that you were only supposed to watch the movie
one time and then leave."
"I left Louisiana in 1963. I was
18 and had just finished high school," she says. "I went to
live with a sister, and probably the way I got into show business was
that I was always singing something. I wasn't aware all the time that
I was singing, but people brought it to my attention. When I first
got to L.A., my friend Emma would always say, 'Hey, that sounds good.
Why don't you do something?' She introduced me to someone who knew
Huey Harris, who wrote some well-known blues songs. That's the person
who introduced me to Al Scott [an R&B disc jockey], who had a
radio show that was sponsored by Ruth Dolphin, [owner] of [a record
store called] Dolphins of Hollywood and Money Records."
She chose the stage name Bettye Swann, because she always thought swans were "lovely." Later on, it would cause tension among her family. "I had a fight with someone in the family over the name Swann. 'What are you trying to do, disown the family?' they said. 'Well,' I said, 'I never thought about it until you said something. Does it bother you?'"
She chose the stage name Bettye Swann, because she always thought swans were "lovely." Later on, it would cause tension among her family. "I had a fight with someone in the family over the name Swann. 'What are you trying to do, disown the family?' they said. 'Well,' I said, 'I never thought about it until you said something. Does it bother you?'"
Scott became Swann's manager and
quickly got her into the studio with producer Arthur Wright. Wright
would go on to create the perfect package for Bettye's music.
Whenever I hear the joyous, loping bass line that introduces "Make
Me Yours," I'm transported to another place, another time --
specifically, America in the year 1967: Martin Luther King Jr. is
still alive and fighting back with nonviolence, and Che Guevara is
stone-cold dead. Racial violence threatens to consume Detroit, the
home of the Motown sound. China explodes a hydrogen bomb. Sinatra
nearly sweeps the Grammys. Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall,
an African-American and the grandson of a slave, is sworn in. The
Graduate mocks the word "plastics." The Packers
annihilate the Chiefs.
"It had a good beat, a good
story," she says. "When I sang ['Don't Wait Too Long'], I
was convinced that it was true. Between writing it and recording it,
it took about a week, and it was on the radio about a month
later."
Wright, who lives in Compton, Calif. today, recalls the sessions for "Don't Wait Too Long" and the other tracks that comprised Swann's debut full-length for Money: "She never sang with a live group. I always overdubbed her voice. We'd get the music done, and she'd finish her vocals in one or two takes. She was a real professional."
There had been other Swann songs ("The Heartache Is Gone," "What Can It Be"), but none of them had traction. "Make Me Yours" was different, though. It has that elusive "fluttering" quality that marks the best of Smokey Robinson, Sam Cooke and Otis Redding. It sounds entirely effortless, as if the song had been put together for the sole purpose of brightening our few, precious, remaining days on Earth.
Wright, who lives in Compton, Calif. today, recalls the sessions for "Don't Wait Too Long" and the other tracks that comprised Swann's debut full-length for Money: "She never sang with a live group. I always overdubbed her voice. We'd get the music done, and she'd finish her vocals in one or two takes. She was a real professional."
There had been other Swann songs ("The Heartache Is Gone," "What Can It Be"), but none of them had traction. "Make Me Yours" was different, though. It has that elusive "fluttering" quality that marks the best of Smokey Robinson, Sam Cooke and Otis Redding. It sounds entirely effortless, as if the song had been put together for the sole purpose of brightening our few, precious, remaining days on Earth.
The song is a plea for spiritual and physical possession, for a place in the heart of another: "Now that I've found you/I wanna stay around/So make me yours." It's a minor masterpiece of Southern soul filtered through a brilliant (if somewhat poorly engineered) West Coast arrangement of Wright.
The
song perched itself at No. 1 on the R&B charts and was a
certified Top-20 pop hit.
To this writer's amazement, Swann
says she was paid $7,000 for "Make Me Yours" -- in advance.
(Since then, however, she says she has received no royalties.) Things
soured soon after, particularly her relationship with Scott. She left
L.A. for Athens, Ga., and acquired a new manager, George Barton, an
established music promoter in the South.
After Swann's contract with Money expired, Motown Records expressed interest in Swann. She passed on the label and instead hitched her wagon to Capitol Records in 1968. In essence, Swann jumped from the frying pan of a small, independent, Southern soul label with a built-in audience and into the fire of a mainstream record company that now had to sell a new artist to the larger listening public (i.e., white folks).
The results were stellar. The reason was Wayne Schuler, a multi-talented producer/ songwriter/A&R guy from Louisiana and son of Eddie Shuler, a Cajun music producer and founder of Goldband Records. Wayne says he was the only one at Capitol who understood R&B. He was deeply fond of Swann's "Make Me Yours," and he was ambitious. He longed to have Swann sing tunes like "Stand By Your Man," a hit made most famous by Tammy Wynette (but also a smash for another soul singer named Candi Staton). Shuler wanted to make Swann a crossover artist, bridging the gap between country and soul.
After Swann's contract with Money expired, Motown Records expressed interest in Swann. She passed on the label and instead hitched her wagon to Capitol Records in 1968. In essence, Swann jumped from the frying pan of a small, independent, Southern soul label with a built-in audience and into the fire of a mainstream record company that now had to sell a new artist to the larger listening public (i.e., white folks).
The results were stellar. The reason was Wayne Schuler, a multi-talented producer/ songwriter/A&R guy from Louisiana and son of Eddie Shuler, a Cajun music producer and founder of Goldband Records. Wayne says he was the only one at Capitol who understood R&B. He was deeply fond of Swann's "Make Me Yours," and he was ambitious. He longed to have Swann sing tunes like "Stand By Your Man," a hit made most famous by Tammy Wynette (but also a smash for another soul singer named Candi Staton). Shuler wanted to make Swann a crossover artist, bridging the gap between country and soul.
That gap has never really been filled,
leaving music writers like myself to wonder how the landscape of
contemporary pop might look today if Shuler and Swann had succeeded.
Now more than ever, it seems, blacks and whites listen to radically
different music. But just 40 years ago, we could all agree on a
mainstream artist like Presley. Those days are gone, and the worlds
of country and R&B have never been further apart.
In any case, Swann had already recorded cowpoke numbers like "I Can't Stop Loving You" for Money. But it was with Shuler that she would record "Stand By Your Man" and Merle Haggard compositions like "Just Because You Can't Be Mine." Yet it was a sultry, down-tempo duet with Buck Owens on the Haggard classic "Today I Started Loving You Again" that thwarted Shuler's plan to catapult Swann into stardom.
According to Shuler, the heads of Capitol blew a gasket when they heard Owens perform a love song with a black woman (even though Owens was all set to book Swann on his TV show "Hee Haw"). The label quickly shelved the single. And then lost it.
"I know they've got [the tape] somewhere," says Shuler, during a recent phone conversation. "They're just not looking hard enough. Hell, I always had to talk Capitol into the country things; they didn't want to do it. It was a work of love. Like so many tasty things, the public wasn't ready for it."
Shuler only has fond memories of working with Swann from her '68-'70 tenure at Capitol. "Bettye had a romantic streak, same as me," says Shuler, "but I never had a problem with her. If she seemed hesitant to try something, I'd just use my friendly persuasion."
Swann, meanwhile, characterizes Shuler as "a wonderful producer," but recalls that she felt a little pressured. "I had the feeling they wanted me to be a black female Charley Pride," she says, laughing.
Of the dozens of songs he recorded with Swann, when asked what his favorite is, Shuler is hesitant to choose. "I loved them all. I mean, which one of your children would you favor? I guess I'll go with the version of 'Today I Started Loving You Again' that she cut with Buck Owens. But I also love 'Words' and 'No Faith, No Love.' I didn't produce many albums, but that's certainly my best work."
British music writer Tim Tooher agrees. To this day he's never heard any other record that sounds quite like those Swann made with Shuler in Los Angeles.
"For me," says Tooher, "they sound like they straddle the Mason-Dixon line sonically, neither having the gravity and roughness of the music of Tennessee and Alabama nor the spring and lightness of Detroit. I think a lot of this has to do with the musicians Wayne used, who were as capable of playing on pure pop records, California country or anything else they were called upon to perform. They weren't a group of musicians who had an instantly identifiable sound, but they were no less effective for that."
Of course, Swann's unique voice is what made things happen. As Tooher and others -- mostly Southern soul enthusiasts in Britain, where American music has traditionally been harder to find -- have already noted, it is Bettye's "inherent optimism," even when singing sad material, that makes her voice stand out.
After leaving Money, Swann made Athens, Ga., her home and a launching pad for what many African-American musicians referred to as "the chitlin circuit." (Chitlins are deep-fried pig intestines.) According to Washington, D.C.-based music journalist Bill Carpenter, whose most recent book is Uncloudy Days: The Gospel Music Encyclopedia, the chitlin circuit was made up of a bunch of "Delta juke joints where anything goes."
In the old days, poor blacks ate chitlins, because it was the cheapest thing to eat.
"They would cook chitlins at these remote places throughout the South," says Carpenter, "where anything that you could ever imagine went on. But the music was always good. Every black entertainer has had to engage it. You could be on the R&B Top 10 and still have to play the chitlin circuit."
Over the years, music writers have only mentioned the chitlin circuit in passing, and no one has yet to significantly cover the topic. But artists like Swann and Candi Staton spent many days and nights driving up and down the South, performing in less-than-posh places, often on the same bill.
"We'd do shows so far up into the country you'd wonder who lived up there," says Staton, Swann's friend and fellow Southern soul sensation who enjoyed her own success last year with Honest Jons/Astralwerk's reissue of her R&B work. "The sun would set and suddenly -- boom! -- there'd be 2,000 people, the place is all lit up. The shows were billed around the 1st and 15th of each month -- 'Mother's Day.' That's when the welfare checks came in the mail. It was like the Wild Wild West. All of us went through hell. People have since tried to make it pretty, but it wasn't."
Staton has many stories of bedlam on the chitlin circuit, including public sex and straight-up murder. She carried a gun for protection, and to ensure that she got paid after each performance.
"People like me -- a good Christian girl from the country -- had to grow up fast," says Staton. "I had to start cussin' right away. You had to cuss 'em out ... to let 'em know you mean business. That's the only language they understood."
Unlike Staton, Swann denies seeing any orgies or shoot-outs on the chitlin circuit -- though she confesses that her manager George Barton often had to pull a gun on someone in order for Bettye to get paid.
"That's how George got a bad reputation," says Swann. "He was always fighting to get me my money. He stood up for me and protected my interests. I loved him from the beginning for the type of person he was."
Swann married Barton in 1970. By then she had jumped ship to FAME, based in Muscle Shoals, Ala., before switching over to Atlantic. She continued to record music and tour until 1976, when she and Barton moved to Las Vegas into an apartment on Bonanza Road. (Shuler helped her secure a lounge gig at the Mint.)
Swann picked up other gigs at the Town Tavern and Union Plaza, and her last public performance took place in 1980, the year Barton passed away. (He was 20 years her senior.) It was the same year Bettye Swann died, and Betty Barton was reborn as one of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Now Swann lives in her home in North Las Vegas, suffering from a degenerative spine condition and collecting disability. She wants to complete her degree in education, but recurring pain keeps her from achieving her goal. She attends services at Kingdom Hall off of Rancho Drive
In any case, Swann had already recorded cowpoke numbers like "I Can't Stop Loving You" for Money. But it was with Shuler that she would record "Stand By Your Man" and Merle Haggard compositions like "Just Because You Can't Be Mine." Yet it was a sultry, down-tempo duet with Buck Owens on the Haggard classic "Today I Started Loving You Again" that thwarted Shuler's plan to catapult Swann into stardom.
According to Shuler, the heads of Capitol blew a gasket when they heard Owens perform a love song with a black woman (even though Owens was all set to book Swann on his TV show "Hee Haw"). The label quickly shelved the single. And then lost it.
"I know they've got [the tape] somewhere," says Shuler, during a recent phone conversation. "They're just not looking hard enough. Hell, I always had to talk Capitol into the country things; they didn't want to do it. It was a work of love. Like so many tasty things, the public wasn't ready for it."
Shuler only has fond memories of working with Swann from her '68-'70 tenure at Capitol. "Bettye had a romantic streak, same as me," says Shuler, "but I never had a problem with her. If she seemed hesitant to try something, I'd just use my friendly persuasion."
Swann, meanwhile, characterizes Shuler as "a wonderful producer," but recalls that she felt a little pressured. "I had the feeling they wanted me to be a black female Charley Pride," she says, laughing.
Of the dozens of songs he recorded with Swann, when asked what his favorite is, Shuler is hesitant to choose. "I loved them all. I mean, which one of your children would you favor? I guess I'll go with the version of 'Today I Started Loving You Again' that she cut with Buck Owens. But I also love 'Words' and 'No Faith, No Love.' I didn't produce many albums, but that's certainly my best work."
British music writer Tim Tooher agrees. To this day he's never heard any other record that sounds quite like those Swann made with Shuler in Los Angeles.
"For me," says Tooher, "they sound like they straddle the Mason-Dixon line sonically, neither having the gravity and roughness of the music of Tennessee and Alabama nor the spring and lightness of Detroit. I think a lot of this has to do with the musicians Wayne used, who were as capable of playing on pure pop records, California country or anything else they were called upon to perform. They weren't a group of musicians who had an instantly identifiable sound, but they were no less effective for that."
Of course, Swann's unique voice is what made things happen. As Tooher and others -- mostly Southern soul enthusiasts in Britain, where American music has traditionally been harder to find -- have already noted, it is Bettye's "inherent optimism," even when singing sad material, that makes her voice stand out.
After leaving Money, Swann made Athens, Ga., her home and a launching pad for what many African-American musicians referred to as "the chitlin circuit." (Chitlins are deep-fried pig intestines.) According to Washington, D.C.-based music journalist Bill Carpenter, whose most recent book is Uncloudy Days: The Gospel Music Encyclopedia, the chitlin circuit was made up of a bunch of "Delta juke joints where anything goes."
In the old days, poor blacks ate chitlins, because it was the cheapest thing to eat.
"They would cook chitlins at these remote places throughout the South," says Carpenter, "where anything that you could ever imagine went on. But the music was always good. Every black entertainer has had to engage it. You could be on the R&B Top 10 and still have to play the chitlin circuit."
Over the years, music writers have only mentioned the chitlin circuit in passing, and no one has yet to significantly cover the topic. But artists like Swann and Candi Staton spent many days and nights driving up and down the South, performing in less-than-posh places, often on the same bill.
"We'd do shows so far up into the country you'd wonder who lived up there," says Staton, Swann's friend and fellow Southern soul sensation who enjoyed her own success last year with Honest Jons/Astralwerk's reissue of her R&B work. "The sun would set and suddenly -- boom! -- there'd be 2,000 people, the place is all lit up. The shows were billed around the 1st and 15th of each month -- 'Mother's Day.' That's when the welfare checks came in the mail. It was like the Wild Wild West. All of us went through hell. People have since tried to make it pretty, but it wasn't."
Staton has many stories of bedlam on the chitlin circuit, including public sex and straight-up murder. She carried a gun for protection, and to ensure that she got paid after each performance.
"People like me -- a good Christian girl from the country -- had to grow up fast," says Staton. "I had to start cussin' right away. You had to cuss 'em out ... to let 'em know you mean business. That's the only language they understood."
Unlike Staton, Swann denies seeing any orgies or shoot-outs on the chitlin circuit -- though she confesses that her manager George Barton often had to pull a gun on someone in order for Bettye to get paid.
"That's how George got a bad reputation," says Swann. "He was always fighting to get me my money. He stood up for me and protected my interests. I loved him from the beginning for the type of person he was."
Swann married Barton in 1970. By then she had jumped ship to FAME, based in Muscle Shoals, Ala., before switching over to Atlantic. She continued to record music and tour until 1976, when she and Barton moved to Las Vegas into an apartment on Bonanza Road. (Shuler helped her secure a lounge gig at the Mint.)
Swann picked up other gigs at the Town Tavern and Union Plaza, and her last public performance took place in 1980, the year Barton passed away. (He was 20 years her senior.) It was the same year Bettye Swann died, and Betty Barton was reborn as one of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Now Swann lives in her home in North Las Vegas, suffering from a degenerative spine condition and collecting disability. She wants to complete her degree in education, but recurring pain keeps her from achieving her goal. She attends services at Kingdom Hall off of Rancho Drive
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