Born Ruth Alston Weston on 30th January 1928 in Portsmouth, Virginia, she attended I. C. Norcom High School, a historically black high school. Brown's father was a dockhand who directed the local church choir, but the young Ruth showed more of an interest in singing at USO shows and nightclubs. She was inspired by Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington. In 1945, Brown ran away from her home in Portsmouth along with a trumpeter, Jimmy Brown, whom she soon married, to sing in bars and clubs. She then spent a month with Lucky Millinder's orchestra, but was fired after she brought drinks to the band for free, and was left stranded in Washington, D.C.
Blanche Calloway, Cab Calloway's sister, also a bandleader, arranged a gig for Brown at a Washington nightclub called Crystal Caverns and soon became her manager. Willis Conover, a Voice of America disc jockey, caught her act and recommended her to Atlantic Records bosses, Ahmet Ertegün and Herb Abramson. Brown was unable to audition as planned though, because of a serious car accident that resulted in a nine-month hospital stay. In 1948, however, Ertegün and Abramson drove to Washington from New York City to hear her sing in the club. Although her repertoire was mostly popular ballads, Ertegün convinced her to switch to rhythm and blues. His productions for her, however, retained her pop style, with clean, fresh arrangements and the singing spot on the beat with little of the usual blues singer's embroidery.
In her first audition, in 1949, she sang "So Long", which became a hit. This was followed by "Teardrops from My Eyes" in 1950; written by Rudy Toombs, it was the first upbeat major hit for Ruth Brown, establishing her as an important figure in R&B. Recorded for Atlantic Records in New York City in September 1950, and released in October, it was on Billboard's List of number-one R&B hits (United States) for eleven weeks. The huge hit earned her the nickname "Miss Rhythm", and within a few months Ruth Brown became the acknowledged queen of R&B.
She followed up this hit with "I'll Wait for You" (1951), "I Know" (1951), "5-10-15 Hours" (1953), "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean" (1953), "Oh What a Dream" (1954), "Mambo Baby" (1954), and "Don't Deceive Me" (1960). She also became known as "Little Miss Rhythm" and "the girl with the teardrop in her voice". In all, she was on the R&B charts for 149 weeks from 1949 to 1955, with sixteen top-ten blues records including five number ones, and became Atlantic's most popular artist, earning Atlantic records the proper name of "The House that Ruth Built".
During the 1960s, Brown faded from public view to become a housewife and mother, and only returned to music in 1975 at the urging of Redd Foxx, followed by a series of comic acting gigs, including roles in the sitcom Hello, Larry and the John Waters film Hairspray as local DJ Motormouth Maybelle, as well as Broadway appearances in Amen Corner and Black and Blue, which earned her a Tony Award for her performance and a Grammy award for her album Blues on Broadway, featuring hits from the show.
Brown's fight for musicians' rights and royalties in 1987 led to the founding of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. She was inducted as a Pioneer Award recipient in its first year, 1989. In 1993, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as "The Queen Mother of the Blues".
She has become an iconic symbol to many black women for later generations, where she is also a favourite artist and inspiration for later blues artists such as Bonnie Raitt. Brown recorded and sang along with fellow rhythm and blues performer Charles Brown, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and toured with Raitt on Raitt's tour in the late 1990s, "Road Tested". Her 1995 autobiography, Miss Rhythm, won the Gleason Award for music journalism.
Brown died in a Las Vegas-area hospital on 17th November 2006, from complications following a heart attack and stroke she suffered after surgery in October 2006. A memorial concert for her was held on 22nd January 2007 at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York.
Just Too Much
Ruth Brown Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Now frown and disagree
Your words have lost that tender touch
That's just too much
To take
Too much
Your arms that once held me
Somehow they've lost their tender touch
That's just too much
To bear
Too much
Could I have been so young and blind
To think you loved me all this time
Your lips that once thrilled me
Now frown and disagree
Your words have lost that tender touch
That's just too much
To take
Too much
To bear
Too much
To take…
Ruth Brown's "Just Too Much" is a song about a woman who is coming to terms with the fact that her significant other no longer loves her as they once did. The song begins with the singer lamenting the fact that the lips that used to thrill her now frown and disagree. She goes on to explain how the person's actions and words have changed, losing the tender touch that they once had. These changes signify a shift in the relationship, one that the singer cannot bear.
The chorus of the song, "That's just too much to take. Too much to bear," repeatedly emphasizes the overwhelming feeling of heartbreak that the singer is experiencing. She questions her own judgement and wonders if she was too young and blind to see that the love was not real all along. The song is a melancholic ballad, intricately exploring the pain of falling out of love.
Overall, "Just Too Much" serves as a poignant reminder that love is not always permanent, and how the loss of a significant love can be devastating to one's emotional and mental well-being. It's a universal sentiment that can resonate with anyone who has gone through heartbreak.
Line by Line Meaning
Your lips that once thrilled me
The singer is referring to their partner, whose kisses used to excite them
Now frown and disagree
Their lover's expressions have become negative and argumentative
Your words have lost that tender touch
The partner's sweet and caring way of speaking has changed for the worse
That's just too much
The singer feels overwhelmed and upset by these changes
To take
The artist can't bear the negative changes any longer
Too much
The situation is emotionally overwhelming
Your arms that once held me
The singer is referring to their partner's embrace, which used to be warm and loving
Feel cold and just chill me
Their partner's touch is now cold and emotionless
Somehow they've lost their tender touch
The partner's once tender touch has disappeared
To bear
The artist is finding it difficult to tolerate these negative changes in their relationship
Could I have been so young and blind
The singer is reflecting on their past naïveté in thinking their partner loved them
To think you loved me all this time
The singer is realizing that their partner's love may not have been as deep or genuine as they once believed
To take…
The situation has become too much for the singer to handle
Contributed by Aaliyah E. Suggest a correction in the comments below.