An Evening with the Queen

Listen to the Queen of the West coast Blues talk about her life of Soul
Long gone are the glory days of Soul.  In the late 1950’s to 1960’s, powerful black women ruled Blues and Jazz: Dinah Washinton, Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone, to name a few.  Their voices were powerful and the music sincere.  But why nostalgize the soulful music of the past if it’s dead and gone?  Because it lives on alive and well.
I had the honor of first encountering Sugar Pie DeSanto at a restaurant bar in downtown Oakland.  On a whim, I struck up a conversation with her.  At four foot eleven inches, ninety-two pounds, and seventy-six years, Sugar Pie DeSanto stands a whole head shorter than I and a whole head wiser.  After exchanging brief pleasantries, I soon discovered I was talking to, “the Queen of the West Coast Blues,” a woman who had toured with the big times and devoted her life to Soul.
Sugar Pie was born Umpeylia Balinton in Brooklyn in 1935.  “My father was Filipino and my mother was from Philadelphia,” she informed me.  “My mother was a concert pianist, yes ma’am. She could hear a song once and play the whole thing.  That’s how I learned standards.  I didn’t have Blues though.  No, I didn’t have that until I started seeing my school chums.”
Of her school chums is the well-known singer Etta James, who encouraged Sugar Pie to enter talent shows.  After winning numerous competitions, Sugar Pie was discouraged from entering to give others a fair shot but not before she was discovered by Johnny Otis. Otis took her to Los Angeles where she recorded her first album.  While in the studio, Otis gave Sugar Pie her current stage name.
Sugar Pie later toured with James Brown and performed at the Apollo a total of eighteen times.  When asked if she knew the Godfather of Soul well, Sugar Pie responded, “James Brown was one of the coolest dudes I’ve ever met.  He was a perfectionist and his band was outta sight.”  I inquired if she had any stories about him on tour.  She smiled and explained, “we were in South Carolina and we had this big bus, the whole band.  James told the bus driver to get out of there and said, ‘I’m driving this bus.’ I told him, ‘no you ain’t!’ But he jumped behind the wheel and then hit this Aston Martin.  It belonged to a sheriff.  We busted up laughing.”
In addition to touring with James Brown, Sugar Pie has performed with Ike and Tina Turner, Jackie Wilson, and Smokey Robinson.
I asked her why there was so much drug use among the artists of her generation to which, she responded, “there’s a pressure, a pressure to be the best or the worst.”  When I asked her how she had managed to stay in the business for so long, she said, “I just know what to do.  I knew how to bring it… none of that extra stuff.”
Sugar Pie writes most of her songs and is known for her lively and captivating performances, often with dance numbers and comedic interludes.  I asked her where her songs came from.  “From the life I live, the life I’ve lived, and the life I plan to live,” she responded coolly, lighting up a cigarette.  The Blues is a uniquely expressive musical art form and Sugar Pie’s personal life largely imbues her Soulful songs.  I inquired what it was like to perform them on stage.  “It’s intimate, very intimate,” she answered.  “I don’t see anyone, I don’t know anyone, I don’t want to know anyone.  I just really get into it I guess.  I use that to exclude all the problems I’m having.  Thank God, it’s a relief.  When I come back down and the show’s over, I have to deal with it.  That’s tough.”  I asked her if her performances were like catharsis.  After explaining the term to her, she replied, “Right on, Sugar. Catharsis.”
Sugar Pie recounts how she was received by audiences over the years, “They used to say, ‘Sugar Pie, she’s one hell of an entertainer, but she’s so risqué!'” Sugar Pie garnered much attention with the brazenly suggestive line in her song, Soulful dress, where she describes wearing “spaghetti straps instead of sleeves,” and her early hit, Rock me baby is loaded with playful innuendos.  “I had to work through that,” she continued, “because I was known as one of the most risqué ladies in show business. But later on as they got in the know they said, ‘Sugar Pie alright, go on, get down Sugar.’”
With many accolades to her name, Sugar Pie DeSanto has been performing Blues and Jazz since the 1950’s.  She was a showstopper then and shows no signs of stopping now.  Sugar Pie has just put all her albums on iTunes.
“The times can change,” she told me, “but I can change with them.”
Photo Credit: Sanfranciscophoto.wordpress.com