The Oakland-based R&B star had performed with James Brown, Etta James and others.
Sugar Pie DeSanto performs at the annual Marin City Blues, Jazz and Soul Party on Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 6, 2010, in Marin City, Calif. , a legendary Bay Area R&B-soul-blues singer who performed with James Brown and Etta James, has died at the age of 89.“She was the first Filipino blues artist of her time, to brake barriers, to become a world wide female blues singer entertainer.
“I put tennis balls up here and pillows back there to make me look older,” remembered DeSanto, pointing to her chest and then her backside. “I’m telling you, those were the days.”She’d later meet and marry guitarist-vocalist Pee Wee Kingsley and they’d start touring together in the early ’50s. She’d then go on to gig with bandleader Johnny Otis, who christened her “Little Miss Sugar Pie.
Backed by Chess — a label that at the time boasted such artists as Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters and Etta James — DeSanto would land gigs at the Apollo in New York, the Regal in Chicago and other prestigious venues. “I have seen Sugar Pie DeSanto perform many times, either on a festival stage or in a nightclub setting, and one thought always arises: What an act!” Tom Mazzolini, founder of the San Francisco Blues Festival, once told this reporter. “This is something only the great ones have — confidence and originality. And that’s Sugar Pie.”“She was a riveting entertainer who would turn flips on stage and land in the lap of an unsuspecting audience member,” Carol says.
And he’d lose his life in that attempt. Firefighters responding to the three-alarm blaze, which apparently started as an electrical fire,“He saved my life,” DeSanto remembered. “But he couldn’t save his own.”
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