Rage to survive by etta james

Rage to Survive, published in 1995 after R & B singer Etta James won a Grammy for the Billie Holiday tribute album she dedicated to her aloof jazz hipster mother Dorothy who she refers to as the “Mystery Lady,” is derived from a series of conversations between Etta James and David Ritz, who authored several biographies about musicians like Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and is responsible for writing the lyrics for “sexual healing.” From an uncertain childhood in San Francisco with an adolescent mother who would abandon Jamesetta Hawkins with benevolent friends who would establish normalcy only for Dorothy to disrupt everything, to learning to sing as a child in a Baptist church choir surrounded by sassy homosexuals (who she still refers to as “secret angels”), to teenage delinquency and rebellion against the “Suzy Creamcheeses” of 1950s conformity with Jamesetta in girl gangs with friends like Sugar Pie DeSanto, f