Ella Washington - He Called Me Baby

A repost by request: This originally came from PresLives and all thanks go to him.

The famous Nashville DJ John Richbourg (John R) had an exceptional ear for blues and R&B.  When he created his own Sound Stage 7 label, he brought a number of first rate singers to Muscle Shoals for the production of some classic Southern Soul.   With the exception of Joe Simon, none of these singers had much commercial success, which would appear to be due to the lack of promotion that Sound Stage 7 received outside of the local market.   An earlier post here was devoted to the unique Geater Davis.  We have here a CD collection from Soulscape Records that gathers together virtually all of the Sound Stage 7 recordings of the great soul diva, Ella Washington.  Ella was probably John R's single favorite artist at Sound Stage 7.  She sang at the latter's funeral in 1986.

Ella Washington was born and raised in Miami, Florida.  Her talents first came to the attention of local R&B artists Paul Kelly and Clarence Reid, who helped launch her recording career in the mid-1960s and secured her a few local hits.   She came to the attention of John R in 1967, who recorded her for Sound Stage 7 from 1967-1971.  "He Called Me Baby" brought her the greatest commercial success, making #38 on the National R&B chart and #77 on Billboard.   As you can hear from this collection, however, there are plenty of tracks here that could have been big hits if they had received the proper promotion.

In 1973, Ella Washington retired from secular music and became a gospel singer.   Since that time, she has released only one album, the quite good and obscure "If You Can Take It, You Can Make It."

Ella Washington has just about everything that you could want in a soul diva: a full and powerful voice, impeccable pitch, an ability to move from soft sexy croon to sanctified roar, and the taste to subordinate all of that to the
effective delivery of a song.   She also has a lisp that, in my opinion, actually adds a endearing personal quality to her singing.   Thank God that John R had the sense to take her to the Southern Soul heaven of Muscle Shoals to make this timeless music.