Sugar Pie DeSanto - Go Go Power (w. suppliments)

Another repost by request:

Sugar Pie DeSanto (born Umpeliya Marsema Balinton, Oct 16, 1935) was a Fillmore girl back when that tag used to mean something, back when San Francisco still had a soul and it was centered in The Fillmore. Her 2 years junior cousin, Etta James, was a Fillmore girl too; she hung out and sang with 'Peliya's' little sister.

Post war, the Fillmore was probably the most culturally and racially diverse neighborhood in America. That both girls should come from mixed parentage  was not particularly unusual in this neighborhood; Sugar's father was Filipino, Etta's father was unknown (unless you buy her mother's Minnesota Fats story).

The neighborhood was jumping and alive with multi-ethnic businesses, and it was the heart of the Black entertainment district as well. Charles Sullivan was the Mayor of Fillmore Street and his Majestic Ballroom was rechristened The Fillmore Auditorium in 1952. Bird, Sammy, Billie, Redd Fox, Moms Mabley, everyone came to The Fillmore. Music clubs like Bop City, The Blue Mirror, and New Orleans Swing Club were places to make the scene. On the weekends and at smaller venues there were talent contests and these were usually haunted by Johnny Otis, always on the hunt for new talent.

In 1954 Otis first found younger cousin Etta at such an event and later the same year he discovered 19 year old Umpeylia at some other event and he signed her too, giving her the name 'Little Miss Sugar Pie'. At 4 foot 11inches and 90 pounds the name fits the package (DeSanto is a later addition by a disc jockey). Unfortunately, Sugar Pie performs only sporadically with Otis' small groups (not the Revue, Etta sang there), Otis records a few sides on her for Federal without much success.

After a couple of years with Johnny Otis, Sugar Pie moves on as a solo singer. She is too much a class act to say it herself, but I would suggest that during  this period Otis was just too focused on Etta, to Sugar's detriment. Bob Geddins steps in in 1957 and they have a sustained success (eventually Billboard R&B #4 after being leased to Chess) with 'I Want to Know', on which they share songwriter credit. Sugar Pie parlays the tours on her hit and her explosively acrobatic stage act into a slot with the James Brown Revue for 1959-60 and then moves to Chicago, signing with Chess, where.... Etta had signed the year before.

Despite making around 30 credible to fabulous sides in her 5 years at Chess, she is always under used and under promoted, once again in Etta's unintentional shadow. Peylia makes ends meet by exploiting a skill her cousin lacked, songwriting. In her tenure at Chess, songwriting royalties and live performances are what paid the bills. The killer stuff you hear on this set got little notice and less promotion, most of it was outright shelved.

In 1964 the American Folk Blues Festival tour took Sugar Pie to Europe, where she was the only female artist, a distinction given to only one female act per year. Other artists included Willie Dixon, John Henry Barbee, Sleepy John Estes, Clifton James, Sunnyland Slim, Hubert Sumlin, Lightnin Hopkins and Sonny Boy Williamson. DeSanto's legendary live act rocked the house every show.

Near the end of her tenure at Chess, DeSanto and James were finally recorded together on 4 or 5 songs written by Sugar Pie - one hopes it was an attempt to give her some overdue recognition - it didn't work and by the end of the 60's Sugar Pie had left both Chess and Chicago to return to San Francisco.

For the last 30 years she has been a Bay Area fixture, sometimes called the Blues Queen of SF, but she sings all genres and played in many diverse settings - a pro singer and prolific songwriter who seems to have a little wave of popularity every decade or so.