Etta James Says I Rather Go Blind Than Allow Beyonce Too....

So Etta James doesn’t like Beyonce’s redition of her signature song, “At Last” Hey! I might not like it either especially if I am still alive and feel like I am being cheated. Etta might feel as if her hard work has been stolen or taken over by someone else. I kinda see it as a slap in Etta's face. Any way this post is about Etta's other song. "I Rather Go Blind" I remember reading this piece by Andrew Chan’s on Cadillac Records, about the film. Chan has nothing but praise for Beyonce: (" Etta Version")

In the film’s climactic number, Beyoncé seals the deal with her rendition of “I’d Rather Go Blind”…as an actress and a singer, she finds ways to make her interpretation both faithful and fresh. Sung directly to an impossible, already-married love interest, label founder Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody), the performance begins from the point-of-view of the male, gazing at Etta from behind with his puppy-dog eyes. From the start, the pace and phrasing of Beyoncé’s vocals follow Etta’s with surprising fidelity. Then, as the camera inches forward, eventually framing the singer’s face in close-up, the scene builds in intensity, climaxing with a sneer at the corner of her mouth, and a few defiant, gut-wrenching wails. It’s clear her version is not the original’s moan of resignation, but an enactment of all the bitterness and resentment on which Etta James based her take-no-prisoners persona…. ( "Beyonce Version")

By the time Beyoncé is finished with “I’d Rather Go Blind,” she has achieved what neither Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles nor Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash could manage: a respectful embodiment as well an expansion of a mythic figure. She takes us across a curiously under explored frontier, where the emotional and physical abandon of an R&B performance becomes both the means and the substance of great melodramatic acting.

Etta’s version of “I’d Rather Go Blind” is embedded above, and Beyonce’s is down below. Judge for yourself. For me it would have to be Etta.