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.
Love Me Baby
Ruth Brown Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Something is burning inside me, it's taking me higher
I stand to break, from bending so far
I've gone from rooted to maybe, I don't want to restart
Why can't I speak? Why can't I relate?
You've got me spinning and spinning and spinning
My knees giving way
So you
So you said I was the one you'd wait a lifetime for
You held your breathe, you bet your life but somehow still unsure
Come on baby love me
Come on baby love me
Come on baby love me
Like I wanna love you
So you said I was the one you'd wait a lifetime for
You held your breathe, you bet your life but somehow still unsure
Come on baby love me
Come on baby love me
Come on baby love me
Like I wanna love you
I held your hand through all your rainy days
Somehow lover, I'm still standing in your rain
And when your days get shorter, and your mind it wanders,
And when your breath gets weaker, I'm still gonna love you
Why can't I speak, why can't I just say
You've got me turning and turning and turning, so lost in your ways.
So you said I was the one you'd wait a lifetime for
You held your breathe, you bet your life but somehow still unsure
Come on baby love me
Come on baby love me
Come on baby love me
Like I wanna love you
Like I wanna touch you.
The lyrics to Ruth Brown's song Love Me Baby are about being deeply in love with someone and wanting them to reciprocate those feelings. The opening lines suggest that the love interest is so powerful that just a glance can make the singer's heart skip a beat. They feel like they are being consumed by their emotions and that it is taking them to new heights. However, they are also uncertain and afraid of being rejected. They feel like they have been bending over backwards for this person, and they are not sure if it is worth it. The singer is spinning out of control, and their knees are giving out from the weight of their emotions.
The chorus repeats the refrain that the singer is the one that the love interest wants to wait a lifetime for, but they are still unsure. The singer is begging for them to love them back the way they deserve to be loved. They want their love to be acknowledged and returned, to be able to touch and express their feelings openly. The lyrics illustrate the tensions and uncertainties that people feel when they are deeply in love and the struggle of being vulnerable in the face of those emotions.
Line by Line Meaning
You glance away and my heart misfires
When you look away from me, my heart races and skips a beat
Something is burning inside me, it's taking me higher
I feel a fiery passion within me that's lifting me up
I stand to break, from bending so far
I've been bending over backwards for you and I'm about to break
I've gone from rooted to maybe, I don't want to restart
I've gone from being sure of our love to questioning it, and I don't want to start over
Why can't I speak? Why can't I relate?
I'm struggling to express myself and connect with you
You've got me spinning and spinning and spinning
You're making me dizzy with your unpredictable behavior
My knees giving way
I'm so overwhelmed that my knees are buckling
So you said I was the one you'd wait a lifetime for
You told me that I'm worth waiting for until the end of time
You held your breathe, you bet your life but somehow still unsure
You risked everything for me, but you're still uncertain about our relationship
Come on baby love me
I'm begging you to love me deeply
Like I wanna love you
I want to love you with all my heart
I held your hand through all your rainy days
I supported you through difficult times
Somehow lover, I'm still standing in your rain
Despite everything, I'm still here for you
And when your days get shorter, and your mind it wanders
As you grow old and your memory fails, I'll still love you
And when your breath gets weaker, I'm still gonna love you
Even in your final moments, I'll love you unabashedly
Like I wanna touch you.
I want to touch you with a passionate intensity
Writer(s): Ruth Brown
Contributed by Madison D. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
@TheGraveyardDog
This is one of, if not the best, R&B songs with a female vocalist that I've ever heard. I fell in love with this song, and perhaps to some degree, became infatuated with Ruth Brown, upon hearing this. It is an absolute masterpiece, and Ruth was quite the beauty at the time, to boot. I absolutely love how the bass line is matched/supported by the piano. The sax solo is also superb, without being overbearing. But my favorite part, aside from the vocal, is that bass line. Hot Damn!!!
@bellgardens53
Agree. Very good and what a voice she possesed. Awesome. Tnx
@stumpytrain
Thanks for sharing Batman, what an amazing record!
@pamelabenschop5532
Ruth Brown was the greatest! I'm upset she didn't even get a mention at the Grammy's after she passed away.
@randallmiller8238
An absolute shame!