Miss Rhythm

Recently I've been rediscovering Ruth Brown's autobiography "Miss Rhythm" and it's open my eyes on a number of fronts. One fascinating tidbit is that Ruth and Jerry "Swamp Dogg" Williams recorded an album together at Muscle Shoals, but the experience was a bad one for Miss Rhythm. Swamp Dogg, according to the book, told her that the financing for the record went bad, then turned around and released a CD pulled from the sessions without her knowledge. The disc, called "Brown Sugar," is probably a collectors item. And for those interested in Hampton Roads music history, it represents the intersection of two great R&B figures, both from Portsmouth.