Bettye Jean Champion was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1944, one of fourteen children. Her family were sharecroppers.
She grew up listening to Sam Cooke and sang in her school choir. At the age of eighteen, she left Louisiana and went to Los Angeles to live with one of her sisters. She was a natural singer, whose voice was noticed. Eventually she came to the attention of Ruth Dolphin, owner of Money Records in L.A., with whom she made some recordings. It was at this point in 1964 that she adopted the stage name Bettye Swann.
She didn’t have to wait long for her first hit, the appropriately named “Don’t Wait Too Long”, which she had written. It must have all seemed pretty easy, as it entered the R&B chart. In 1967, her future looked assured when her single “Make Me Yours” went to number one on the Billboard R&B chart and number twenty-one on the Pop chart.
1968 brought a change of manager, a move to Capitol Records and relocation to Georgia. She married her new manager, George Barton. The next hit came in 1969, a cover of Jean Seely’s “Don’t Touch Me”, which reached number fourteen R&B and number thirty-eight Pop. Two years later, she made a series of recordings at FAME Studios with Rick Hall.
The first of these was “I’m Just Living a Lie”, released on the FAME label in 1971. She then signed for Atlantic Records for the release of the other FAME Studios tracks, “Victim of a Foolish Heart”, written by George Jackson and Mickey Buckins, and “Today I Started Loving You Again”/ “I’d Rather Go Blind”.
The second of these entered the R&B top twenty in 1972. It was later covered by Joss Stone in the UK on her 2003 album “The Soul Sessions”. The third single is a cover of Etta James’ big hit, with an interesting choice on the other side. “Today I Started Loving You Again” is a Merle Haggard/Bonnie Owens song, which, in Bettye Swann’s version, is barely recognisable. Bettye Swann speeds things up a little, adding warmth and exuberance to the slower, laid-back original. The arrangements of horns and strings are both strong, emphasizing the natural optimism in Swann’s voice. The single was sympathetically produced by Rick Hall and Mickey Buckins, with the FAME Gang and the Muscle Shoals Horns playing on the session. It is an excellent example of the style that evolved at FAME, merging elements of Soul and Country music, taking the recordings to a much wider audience. Comparing Swann’s early recordings with the FAME tracks shows clearly how Rick Hall was able to improve the quality of the songs chosen by the artists who came to record with him and also how the FAME session men could add some Southern Soul to the mix.
Swann later recorded again in Los Angeles, before moving to Las Vegas. Her last performance was in 1980. Now known as Bettye Barton, she gave up the music industry, started work as a teacher and became a Jehovah’s Witness.
