RIP Sugar Pie DeSanto

orange roughy

orange roughy

Rising Star
Platinum Member
I never followed the Blues like I should have. Just heard of this artist, who just passed. Hardcore blues. Here's the blurb that was on IG

Sugar Pie DeSanto : RIP​

New to me, but the clip caught my eye. One of our new ancestors! IG poster: trappedhistory Please listen to the magnificent Sugar Pie DeSanto, who peacefully passed away in her sleep last week at the grand old age of 89. I get goosebumps just watching this! Sugar Pie was of course not her real name. Born Umpeylia Marsema Balinton to an African-American mother and a Filipino father, she grew up in San Francisco and was childhood friends with Etta James. Her mother was a trained musician: "She was a monster. She never read a note. Everything she played, she could hear it one time and play it all the way through without an error.” Sugar Pie’s stage name came from Johnny Otis, who discovered her in 1955: “While we were in the studio he named me Sugar Pie because I was so little. I wore a size three shoe and I weighed about 85 pounds. I was very tiny." That’s true. But at 4’11” she more than made up for it in power. Sugar Pie would open for James Brown for a couple of years before charting herself in the early ‘60s. She would write from her lived experience – her first hit ‘I Want To Know’ was inspired by “my everyday living of going through problems with men, and smoking weed and hanging out” while her ‘Slip-in Mules’ was a riposte to ‘High-Heel Sneakers.’ With ‘Soulful Dress,’ Sugar Pie soon became Chess Records’ highest paid songwriter as part of an all-female writing partnership. And it was off the back of that that she became the only woman on the legendary American Folk-Blues Festival tour of England in 1964, alongside such greats as Lightnin’ Hopkins and Howlin’ Wolf. This is where this spine-tingling footage comes from. She’d sing too with Etta James and write over 100 songs – but somehow or other, crossover success as a performer eluded her. It was only more recently that Sugar Pie was recognised for the powerhouse that she was, with a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in 2008, an acclaimed album in 2018, the Arhoolie Award in 2020 and a mayoral proclamation in Chicago last year. As Sugar Pie liked to say: “I like to leave the stage smokin’.” Amen to that. #history #music #blues #jazz #funk #blackhistory #goosebumps #christmas #legend #inspiration #trappedhistory
 
I never followed the Blues like I should have. Just heard of this artist, who just passed. Hardcore blues. Here's the blurb that was on IG

Sugar Pie DeSanto : RIP​

New to me, but the clip caught my eye. One of our new ancestors! IG poster: trappedhistory Please listen to the magnificent Sugar Pie DeSanto, who peacefully passed away in her sleep last week at the grand old age of 89. I get goosebumps just watching this! Sugar Pie was of course not her real name. Born Umpeylia Marsema Balinton to an African-American mother and a Filipino father, she grew up in San Francisco and was childhood friends with Etta James. Her mother was a trained musician: "She was a monster. She never read a note. Everything she played, she could hear it one time and play it all the way through without an error.” Sugar Pie’s stage name came from Johnny Otis, who discovered her in 1955: “While we were in the studio he named me Sugar Pie because I was so little. I wore a size three shoe and I weighed about 85 pounds. I was very tiny." That’s true. But at 4’11” she more than made up for it in power. Sugar Pie would open for James Brown for a couple of years before charting herself in the early ‘60s. She would write from her lived experience – her first hit ‘I Want To Know’ was inspired by “my everyday living of going through problems with men, and smoking weed and hanging out” while her ‘Slip-in Mules’ was a riposte to ‘High-Heel Sneakers.’ With ‘Soulful Dress,’ Sugar Pie soon became Chess Records’ highest paid songwriter as part of an all-female writing partnership. And it was off the back of that that she became the only woman on the legendary American Folk-Blues Festival tour of England in 1964, alongside such greats as Lightnin’ Hopkins and Howlin’ Wolf. This is where this spine-tingling footage comes from. She’d sing too with Etta James and write over 100 songs – but somehow or other, crossover success as a performer eluded her. It was only more recently that Sugar Pie was recognised for the powerhouse that she was, with a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in 2008, an acclaimed album in 2018, the Arhoolie Award in 2020 and a mayoral proclamation in Chicago last year. As Sugar Pie liked to say: “I like to leave the stage smokin’.” Amen to that. #history #music #blues #jazz #funk #blackhistory #goosebumps #christmas #legend #inspiration #trappedhistory
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top