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At last! Etta James loses 200 pounds and finds a new zest for life
Ebony, Sept, 2003 by Joy Bennett Kinnon
WHEN the band strikes up blues diva Etta James signature song, "Come to Mama"--"mama" can swing with the music for the first time in years.
After struggling with a lifelong weight problem, James made what she terms a "lifesaving decision" and underwent gastric bypass surgery, called the Fobi Pouch, dropped 200 pounds, and feels better than she has in years.
For years the veteran singer had to be pushed onto stage in a wheelchair due to chronic knee problems, complicated by her ever-increasing weight. It prevented her from touring and even more important, it threatened her life.
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"I thought I was going to die," recalls James, who currently weighs about 220 pounds. "I was constantly worried that I was going to have a heart attack. Dr. Fobi saved my life."
The Fobi pouch essentially reduced James' stomach, creating a pouch, which limits her food intake and gives her the sensation of being full much more quickly. Dr. Mai Fobi is one of the nation's top obesity surgeons and has helped other entertainers lose weight, including JoMarie Payton and Roseanne Barr. In fact, it was Barr who convinced James to seek Dr. Fobi's help when she sang on her show a few years ago.
"She pulled me aside in the dressing room before the show and said, 'Girl, you need to see Dr. Fobi.' Later, she came on stage and sang and danced the Hoochie Coochie with me. I saw what a difference losing the weight had done for her life. She looked good."
Prior to her surgery, James suffered from a number of weight-related illnesses, had difficulty walking and needed a motorized wheelchair to get to the stage during her concerts. The low point came a couple of years ago when she fell in a New York street and had trouble getting up. "People were laughing at me, and I laughed right along with them," she says. "But it hurt inside. I knew I had to do something about my weight problem."
James went to see Dr. Fobi in her wheelchair, and when she got there, she says she cried. "I thought I was going to have to give up the stage" she says. "My orthopedic surgeon had recommended knee-replacement surgery, but they wouldn't do it because of my weight. I weighed 400 pounds."
Dr. Fobi was concerned about performing the surgery because of her age (over 60). "I asked her if she understood all the risks," Dr. Fobi says. She did and she insisted on having the surgery.
Because she took that risk, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer is now on an extensive U.S. tour for the first time in years to support her self-produced new album, Let's Roil, that contains a long-awaited collection of new material. "Recently, I walked on stage at the House of Blues in L.A. and I looked back at my band [The Roots Band] and saw tears in their eyes. When I sang that night, we all had tears in our eyes," she says.
James' doctor was also in the audience that night and witnessed a 5- to-7-minute standing ovation when she first walked out on stage. "She's remarkable," Fobi says. "She's standing and gyrating on stage like she did some years ago."
The legendary entertainer says, in addition to helping the weight problem, the surgery seems to have improved her voice. "I can sing lower, higher and louder," she says laughing.
That "new" voice is amply displayed on her new album, which was recorded last year at her Fort Athens Studio in her home and was co-produced by guitarist Josh Sklair and her sons, Donto and Sametto James, who play drums and bass respectively in her band. "I feel it is one of the best ones I've ever done," she says. That's high praise from the 50-year R&B, soul and blues pioneer, whose intensely passionate voice has been the cornerstone of classics like "At Last," "Something's Got a Hold on Me," "Sunday Kind of Love" and "Tell Mama."
With a new record, new tour and a new lease on life, Etta James says that now she is a new woman. "I have so much energy now," she says. "I am so happy that I am alive and that I can walk." Ultimately, she hopes to get her weight down to 200 pounds. And after having already battled and overcome drug addiction, James and her doctor believe she will achieve this goal as well. "Dr. Fobi thinks I can do it," she says. "I've gone through so much in my life. I should have been dead a long time ago, but I am still here, and I am the happiest I've ever been."
COPYRIGHT 2003 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group
