She was born Jamesetta Hawkins into the bustle of Los Angeles’ Central Avenue area in 1938. Pockets of black social and business life were springing up along that route all the way from downtown out to Watts (see this site’s February 10, 2001 article, “Postwar Los Angeles: Central Avenue and Watts”). Clubs, ballrooms, theaters and hotels catered to this growing and increasingly connected population. Vice of all types accompanied this night life.
Little Jamesetta’s mother was sixteen when she bore her. Dorothy, as the singer has called her all her life, dragged the youngster from one tiny sleeping room to another for the first six years of her life. Hawkins was exposed to an endless string of boyfriends, one-night stands, hoodlums and people on the fringes of the entertainment business. Finally, Dorothy summarily dumped the child at the home of one of her landlords. The couple with whom Jamesetta was stashed gave her the first stable environment she’d known. She did well in school and sang in the choir at St. Paul Baptist Church. Her childhood friends included Jesse Belvin, who would later be a pioneer of doo-wop and an r&b heartthrob, and Richard Berry, who would go on to be an arranger for Modern Records and pen the song “Louie Louie.”
Dorothy would reenter the picture periodically, however. After the child’s mother figure passed away, Dorothy reclaimed her and took her to live in a San Francisco housing project. It didn’t take long for this move to reverse all the positive upbringing the Los Angeles couple had imparted. Jamesetta started running with a gang, smoking weed and getting in trouble. When she was thirteen, she was ordered by a court to spend time in a home for troubled youth.
Upon her release, she started singing with two other girls from the project. They called themselves The Peaches and performed at local dances. One night they went to see The Johnny Otis Show at the Primaline Ballroom. After the show, Jamesetta went home, but the other Peaches went to Otis’ hotel room to sing for him and tell him about the group. They called Jamesetta and told her Otis would pay the cab fare for her to come to the room and audition. She was so shy at the audition, she went into the bathroom to sing her part. On the basis of the audition and forged permission notes from the girls’ parents, they boarded Otis’ bus for Los Angeles the next day. Within a week, they had cut “Roll With Me Henry,” a tune meant to answer Hank Ballard’s “Work With Me Annie.” Otis played it extensively on his radio show. He also christened The Peaches’ lead singer Etta James and booked the group on a tour of his r&b revue.
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