‘Miss Rhythm’ looks back on her storied career

Tuesday, March 19, 2002 | 8:26 a.m.

Information: 507-3980.

It remains to be seen whether a stroke two years ago robbed 74-year-old Ruth Brown of her "Miss Rhythm" title.

"I have not performed since then," said Brown, who was given the nickname nearly 50 years ago by singer Frankie Lane (then known as "Mr. Rhythm").

"I lost my voice completely and had to go to therapy to learn how to speak all over again," Brown said.

During a recent telephone interview from her Henderson residence, the legendary blues and jazz vocalist -- who rose to stardom in the 1950s -- sounded fine. Although her speech was slow and measured, there were no signs of impairment.

She can talk. But can she sing?

Brown's fans may find out when she is the featured guest speaker Wednesday night at the West Las Vegas Library, as part of festivities for National Women's History Month being celebrated by the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District.

Brown intends to talk about her life and career, and answer questions from the audience -- and she may even try to sing a few notes.

"I hope so," she said. "I haven't performed, but I've been in a place where a keyboard player would hit a note and I would hit a few notes, but I wouldn't sing a complete song because I had trouble remembering the lyrics."

She will never forget March 31, 1999 -- the day her life changed.

"It was so bad," she said. "I didn't want to live when I could not speak."

The previous night she had performed at a concert at Community College of Southern Nevada in place of Joe Williams for Williams' Music Scholarship Fund. Williams had died the day before, on March 29.

"Early the next morning, the stroke came down on me," Brown said. "I was preparing to go to Italy for eight or nine days. I was on my way to going to Rome. I wanted to go there for years."

The stroke robbed Brown of her voice temporarily, but not of her desire to sing. "I still want to sing," she said. "I just don't know how good it will be."

Brown, a native of Porstmouth, Va., signed with Atlantic Records in 1948 when it was a fledgling company. She gave the company its second-ever hit with "So Long." Her second single, "Teardrops in My Eyes," was a No. 1 R&B hit in 1949. Brown dominated the R&B charts during the '50s.

In 1989 she received her first Grammy Award for the album "Blues On Broadway," and a Tony Award for the Broadway production "Black and Blue."

She won the Ralph Gleason Award for Music Journalism for her 1996 autobiography "Miss Rhythm: The Autobiography of Ruth Brown, Rhythm and Blues Legend," written by Brown with Andrew Yule (Donald I. Fine Books).

Brown moved to Las Vegas from Los Angeles in 1994, after the Northridge earthquake in January of that year destroyed her home. But Brown was no stranger to the city: She first performed in Las Vegas in 1953 at Moulin Rouge.

"That was some great place," she said. "You'd look up and see Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra and Billy Eckstine. It was just great. I didn't get to see much of the Strip, so to speak, because blacks were not welcome at that time."

But times changed.

"I came back here again in 1975, when my friend Redd Foxx brought me," Brown recalled. "I worked at the Circus Circus, had a little band. Then I got a chance to play at the Aladdin. They were doing 'Guys and Dolls,' the first all-black cast."

She says she hopes she will get another chance to perform in Las Vegas.

"But I don't know," Brown, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, said. "It's a rough city, musically."

Her doctors tell her she may be strong enough in June to take a shot at a comeback.

"I don't know if I can do an hour or anything like that," she said. "Maybe I could do something as a hostess with jazz musicians and sing some."

If Brown is looking for people to appear onstage with her, she doesn't have to look far. Among her closest friends are B.B. King (a Las Vegas resident), Bonnie Raitt and Etta James.

"Nobody knows how good Bonnie is," Brown said. "She's been at my back ever since I've been ill. Not one week has she not called me. She calls me from everywhere. She sends me flowers and fruit baskets."

Brown's list of friends reads similar to a who's who of the entertainment world.

Cab Calloway's sister, Blanch, discovered Brown almost 60 years ago. Brown toured with Williams and Count Basie. She's close to Lena Horne, and was friends with the late Carmen MacRae and Sarah Vaughan.

"I came along with the giants who no longer are here," Brown said. "I knew Dr. Martin Luther King and Mahalia Jackson. Alex Haley was my good friend."

She sometimes feels nostalgic about her storied past.

"There comes a time when you really don't know what you have until you don't have it," Brown said. "With the way the world is now, I've done a lot of crying watching the televison -- crying on behalf of the world situation. I don't think there was ever a time I wanted to sing so badly as I have since Sept. 11."

Similar to most Americans, the terrorist attacks upset Brown.

"I wanted to sing 'God Bless America' so bad and so loud, but I couldn't do it. I heard people sing it. But I couldn't," she said.

Brown once sang at the Window of the World restaurant atop the World Trade Center.

"I have not been to New York since the attack, which is where I used to live," she said. "I can't go there right now. It's too upsetting.

"If I can hold on, there's still so many songs that I would like to sing. The way the world situation is now, I think there's a place for me, if I can just do it."

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