Fontella
Bass was born in St.Missouri Bass’ younger brother David Peason was a former
Showtime at the Apollo champion. She was the daughter of gospel singer Martha
Bass and at the age of five Fontella was providing the piano accompaniment for
her grandmother's singing at funeral services. She was singing in her church's
choir at six and by the time she was nine she was accompanying her mother on
tours throughout the American South and Southwest.
Fontella
continued touring with her mother until the age of sixteen. When she was
attracted by more secular music. Throughout high school she began singing
R&B songs at local contests and fairs. At seventeen, she started her
professional career working at the Showboat Club near Chain of Rocks, Missouri.
In 1961, she auditioned on a dare for the Leon Claxton carnival show and was
hired to play piano and sing in the chorus for two weeks, making $175 per week
for the two weeks it was in town. She wanted to go on tour with Claxton but her
mother refused and according to Bass "... she literally dragged me off the
train". It was during this brief stint hat she was heard by Oliver Sain.
Who hired her to back Little Milton on piano for concerts and recording. Bass
originally only played piano with the band, but one night Milton didn't show up
on time so Sain asked her to sing and she was soon given her own featured vocal
spot in the show. Milton and Sain eventually split up and Bass went with Sain;
he also recruited male singer Bobby McClure and the group became known as
"The Oliver Sain Soul Revue featuring Fontella and Bobby McClure. With the
support of Bob Lyons, the manager of St. Louis station Katz, Bass recorded
several songs released through Bobbin Records and produced by Ike Turner. She
saw no notable success outside her hometown. It was also during this period she
met and subsequently married the noted jazz trumpeter Lester Bowie.
Two
years later she quit the Milton band and moved to Chicago after a dispute with
Oliver Sain. She auditioned for Chess Records, who immediately signed her as a
recording artist. Her first works with the label were several duets with Bobby
McClure, who had also been signed to the label. Released early in 1965, their
recording "Don't Mess Up a Good Thing" (credited to Oliver Sain)
found immediate success, reaching the top five at R&B radio and peaking at
#33 at pop. Bass and McClure followed their early success with "You'll
Miss Me (When I'm Gone)" that summer, a song that had mild success,
reaching the Top 30 on the R&B chart, although it made no significant
impression on the pop chart. After a brief tour, Bass returned to the studio.
The result was an original composition with an aggressive rhythm section;
backing musicians on the track included drummer Maurice White (later the leader
of Earth, wind and fire), bassist Louis Satterfield and tenor saxophonist Gene
Barge and the young Minnie Rippleton among the background singers. The song
Rescue shot up the charts in the fall and winter of 1965. After a month-long
run at the top of the R&B charts, the song reached #4 at the pop charts and
gave Chess its first million-selling single since Chuck Berry a decade earlier.
Bass
followed with "Recovery," which did moderately well, peaking at #13
(R&B) and #37 (pop) in early 1966. The same year brought two more R&B
hits, "I Can't Rest" (backed with "I Surrender)" and
"You'll Never Know." Her only album with Chess Records, The New
Look, sold
reasonably well, but Bass soon became disillusioned with Chess and decided to
leave the label after only two years, in 1967. By her own account, she was
effectively cheated out of her royalties for "Rescue Me", which she
had co-written with pianist Raynard Miner. Bass demanded a better royalty rate
and artistic control; she approached her then manager Billy Davis about
securing her writing credit on the song but was told not to worry about it.
When the record came out and her name was still not on it she was told it would
be on the legal documents, but this never happened. She continued to agitate about
the matter for a couple years but later recalled: "It actually
side-stepped me in the business because I got a reputation of being a trouble
maker." Tiring of the mainstream music scene, she and husband Lester Bowie
left America and moved to Paris in 1969, where she recorded two albums. Even
with the success of "Rescue Me" it was many years and much litigation
before Bass would be credited with her share of the songwriting and the
royalties. In 1993 Bass sued American Express and Ogilvy and Mather for the
unauthorized use of the song in a commercial for the credit card giant
The
next few years found Bass at a number of different labels, but saw no notable
successes. After her second album, free, flopped in 1972, Bass retired from music and
concentrated on raising a family (she has four children with Bowie). She
returned occasionally, being featured as a background vocalist on several
recordings, including those by Bowie. In 1990 she recorded a gospel album with
her mother and brother David Peaston, called Promises: A Family Portrait of
Faith and
undertook a fall tour of the US West Coast, called "Juke Joints and
Jubilee", which featured both traditional gospel and blues performers.
During the 1990s she hosted a short-lived Chicago radio talk show, released
several gospel records on independent labels through old friend Harriet Bluett.
Like many artists of her time, Bass experienced a revival of interest. She was
featured on the PBS Special and accompanying DVD, Soul Celebration, Soul
Spectacular recorded live at Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh, PA, November 2001. She
has been inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
