Sugar Pie DeSantowas born in Brooklyn in 1935. Her real name was Umpeylia Marcema Balinton, but she was usually called Peylia. When she was four years old, the family moved from New York to San Francisco, where she grew up and developed an interest in singing and dancing. One of her childhood friends was Etta James!
In 1955 she was “discovered” by Johnny Otis, when she won a talent contest at the Ellis Theatre. (Otis had already discovered Etta James). He was impressed enough to offer her a contract and take her to Los Angeles to record her first single. It was Otis who came up with the new stage name too. DeSanto was only one metre fifty tall, just under five feet, and Otis called her Little Miss Sugar Pie.
By the end of the fifties, DeSanto was performing regularly in major concert venues in all the big cities. For two years (1959-1960) she became the opening act for James Brown. Her first hit came in 1960, when her duet with her husband Pee Wee Kingsley (real name Alvin Parham), “I Want to Know”, was released on Robert Geddins’ Veltone label. The single reached number four on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart. Soon after that, they divorced and DeSanto moved to Chicago.
She was a powerful singer, well capable of handling Blues, Jazz and Soul. She was a great dancer, a charismatic performer and a very creative songwriter. It wasn’t surprising that Leonard Chess signed her to the company in 1961, as a performing artist but also as a songwriter. She was assigned to the Checker label and soon issued a single and an album. The single, “Can’t Let You Go”, written by DeSanto and her husband, was arranged and conducted by Riley Hampton. It is the opening track of the 1961 album “Sugar Pie”, which has four more songs written or co-written by DeSanto. The Blues feel that she injects into many of the tracks indicates her first real love, but there is a strong Soul element too.
During 1964, Chess released three DeSanto singles, all of which entered the Billboard R&B chart. The first was “Slip-In Mules (No High Heel Sneakers)”, the second was “Soulful Dress”, and the third was “Use What You Got”. The power of DeSanto’s voice is reminiscent of Etta James, her old childhood friend, with whom she has much in common.
DeSanto wrote songs in her married name of Peylia Parham. In 1965 she teamed up with Shena DeMell at Chess to write a song that she then went on to record with Etta James. “Do I Make Myself Clear” on Argo (1965) entered the Billboard R&B chart and was followed by a second duet “In the Basement – Part 1” (1966) on Cadet, which also sold well.
This seemed to be cementing DeSanto’s career at Chess, but her next solo single failed to make any impact and, soon after that, she left the company.
She recorded for several companies from 1967, including Brunswick and Soul Clock, but the most important releases came when she joined the Jasman label in Oakland, California, in 1970. Jasman put out five DeSanto albums between 1984 and 2005, including “Classic Sugar Pie” in 1997. It is an excellent album, recorded in New Orleans, for which Wardell Quezergue did the arrangements.
Kent Records’ compilation of DeSanto’s Chess songs
Album Cover courtesy of Ace Records (UK)
After more than fifty years in the business, De Santo was honoured by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation with a Pioneer Award in 2008, and then in 2009 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Goldie Foundation. These recognised her recordings, her live shows and, especially, her song writing. DeSanto wrote or co-wrote over a hundred songs. Some of the artists who benefitted from her song-writing skills were Minnie Riperton, Billy Stewart, Fontella Bass, Little Milton, the Dells and the Whispers.
Ace Records (UK) released a 24-track compilation of all DeSanto’s Chess singles on their Kent label in 2009, entitled “Go Go Power”. The collection clearly demonstrates her contribution to the signature sound of Chicago Soul.
