Jazz Police - Sugar Pie DeSanto and Kim Nalley Tribute to Etta James at the Rrazz Roomin San Francisco

Sugar Pie DeSanto and Kim Nalley Tribute to Etta James at the Rrazz Roomin San Francisco

Written by Ronaldo Oregano

Tuesday, 17 July 2012

Etta James

The Grammy-nominated vocalist Kim Nalley possesses a range that spans nearly four octaves, one of many reasons for the critical acclaim that she has garnered throughout the Bay Area and beyond. Kim Nalley can go from operatic to gritty blues on a dime, projection that can whisper a ballad yet is capable of filling a room with no microphone, and has the ability to scat blistering solos without ever losing the crowd's interest or the intense swing. Dubbed “Queen of the West Coast Blues”, Sugar Pie DeSanto's first single was purchased by Chess Records after it became a regional hit. Chess offered Sugar Pie a contract and she spent the next seven years in the Chicago writing hit tunes for Little Milton, The Dells, Minnie Ripperton and many others including her cousin Etta James. Sugar Pie and Etta duetted on two recordings for Chess, "Do I Make Myself Clear" and In "The Basement". Nalley and SDeSanto with special guests Lady Mem'Fis, Angela Strehli and Denise Perrier will play the Rrazz Room at the Nikko Hotel in San Francisco on Wednesday, July 18th at 8:00 p.m. and then Kim Nalley continues performances nightly through Sunday, Juy22nd.

Sugar Pie DeSanto(photo: Michael Ablov)

Sugar Pie DeSanto was raised in the historic Fillmore district of San Francisco, California. Legendary band leader Johnny Otis signed the young Miss Balinton to a Chess Record recording contract after witnessing her win a local talent contest in 1954. Her first single “Boom Diddy Wawa, Baby" was released in 1955. She met guitarist Pee Wee Kingsley at a gig in Stockton, California. He eventually became her husband and band director. In 1959, Sugar Pie and Kingsley walked into the studios of Bob Geddins, remembered fondly as the “Godfather of the Oakland Blues”. She confidently announced to Geddins, “Bob, I think I got one!” Godfather Geddins concurred.

In 1964 Sugar Pie DeSanto was the only female on the American Folk Blues Festival that toured Europe. The legendary tour featured such Kings of the Blues as Willie Dixon, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Hopkins, Hubert Sumlin and Sunnyland Slim. Toward the end of her tenure at Chess, Sugar Pie hooked up with James Brown and toured with him for two years. As his opening act, it was her job to heat the crowd up for the hardest working man in show business. If the truth be known, Sugar Pie set the performance bar high for brother James.

In her seventies, Sugar Pie shows no signs of slowing down. With a new CD released in and well over 100 songs written throughout her career, Sugar Pie DeSanto is truly the Grand Dame of entertainment. Though she has been categorically typecast as a Blues singer, Ms. DeSanto expertly swings her way around Pop, Soul and Jazz. She is a peerless dancer, choreographer, show stopping actress and comedienne. When it is indeed all said and done, Sugar Pie is one of the greatest entertainers performing on earth.

Kim Nalley

A born singer, as a child Nalley was taught piano by her great-grandmother and studied opera and theatre at the Educational Center of the Arts in New Haven, CT, before relocating to San Francisco in the footsteps of the Grateful Dead. Working her way through college by singing in small dives and jam sessions, Nalley learned all of the intricacies of jazz the old fashioned way. Music critic Phil Elwood and SF Symphony director Michael Tilson Thomas quickly discovered Kim Nalley and brought her to national attention after they noticed her singing nightly at the Alta Plaza to packed audiences - without amplification.

Since then, Kim Nalley has performed globally, including most of the major jazz festivals in United States, Europe, Japan and Canada such as Monterey, Umbria Jazz and Lincoln Center and lived in Europe for several years before returning to San Francisco to re-open the jazz club Jazz at Pearl's. During her tenure from 2003 to 2008, Nalley raised the club to iconic international acclaim as the owner and artistic director.

She frequently collaborates and performs with artists such as Rhoda Scott, David "Fathead" Newman, Houston Person, James Williams, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. She has recorded several critically-acclaimed CDs on labels distributed worldwide, including her latest release, She Put A Spell On Me, which was short-listed for a 2006 Grammy Award, and Million Dollar Secret, which charted in the Jazz Top 40.

Kim holds a degree in history from UC Berkeley and often combines music and history to create historiographical concerts with great success, including her award-winning "Ladies Sing the Blues," "She Put a Spell on Me: Tribute to Nina Simone," the multimedia presentation Black History Month Concert Series and "The Heart of Lady Day," a Billie Holiday biopic. As an actress she recently starred as Billie Holiday in the dramatic play "Lady Day in Love," Blues Speak woman in Zora Neale Hurston's "Spunk" and has starred in Teatro Zinzanni as Madame Zinzanni, a role subsequently filled by Joan Baez and Sandra Reeves-Phillipes.

The Sugar Pie DeSanto photo by Michael Ablov is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

The RRazz Room at Hotel Nikko is located at 222 Mason Street, San Francisco. For tickets and more information, 800-380-3095 or http://therrazzroom.com

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites