ABSTRACT
Singer Ruth Brown, whose title of “Miss Rhythm” signified her importance to the growing R&B field in the early 1950s, was one of the first artists to bring prominence to the independent label Atlantic Records. As she discusses in these excerpts from her 1996 autobiography, black artists like herself were at a decided disadvantage in the 1950s. Not only were they limited in their access to channels of distribution, such as radio and television, but their very songs were often duplicated virtually unchanged by white singers, whose versions were then promoted in wider marketplaces, and for greater sales. For all the deep resentment and pain that singers like Brown and LaVern Baker felt, at the same time Brown acknowledges that she did not view all covers as unwanted encroachments. As long as the recording “contributed” to the song, it was welcome.
