Etta James

Holiday is a great American artist, a genius whose musical improvisations only deepened an unfathomable persona that was sweet, willing, knowing, suspicious, sly, cynical, and impossibly unhappy before she hit 25 and then gained texture as her body broke down. James is merely a fine r&b singer who's been stroking her cult since before she had one. Entertaining an audience of self-anointed sophisticates who had a thing for earthy music, she fell into the habit of cutting her own earthiness with a flattering wink and coasting from there, and as she herself would tell you, preferably while signing your CD booklet, it would be stupid to buy this before taking on Holiday--Columbia's young three-disc box (with Billie, crappy material just adds to the challenge), or Verve's mature two-disc set (with Billie, a ravaged voice ditto). But short of Chess's young two-disc Essential Etta James, it's Etta's most consistent and musical album--her melodic nuances are every bit as hip as the ace backup of Cedar Walton's tight septet. Beyond repertoire, it has little to do with Billie--at most, Etta suggests Holiday's tough soul the way Diana Ross did her pop smarts. But compared to Miki Howard's disgracefully self-aggrandizing "tribute" or Terence Blanchard's dismayingly schmaltzy "songbook," it's an act of love. It's also a hell of a torch record. (Grade: A-)