Page 70 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2016

Living Legend:

Sugar Pie DeSanto

Queen of the West Coast Blues

Photo by Ÿ Joseph A. Rosen
By T. Watts
When Sugar Pie DeSanto took the stage at the San Sugar Pie her first bona fide hit in 1960. She then went on the
Francisco Jazz Festival on March 4, 2016, for the Women’s road with James Brown for about two years before signing with
History Month Celebration Concert Series, it definitively Chess Records in 1962. During her tenure with Chess, Sugar
marked her seventh decade as a heralded performer. As Pie became their highest paid songwriter, writing for Etta James
the daring, diminutive and demonstrative “Queen of the (who happened to be her childhood friend), and a myriad of
West Coast Blues,” it also gave her viable recognition in her Chess artists. She also recorded a slew of duets with James, a
hometown as one of the world’s most valuable entertainers. couple of which are DJ dancefloor gems to this day.
Umpeylia Marsema Balinton was born in Brooklyn to a Sugar Pie has shared stages with Howlin’ Wolf, James
Filipino-American father and an African-American mother on Brown, Jackie Wilson, Rufus Thomas, Otis Redding and
October 16, 1935. The family moved to the Fillmore district of countless others. She set the performance bar so high for James
San Francisco when she was a toddler, and the Fillmore was Brown that he told her in jest she was making him work too
where she cut her musical teeth. hard. She was the only woman on the 1964 Folk American
At the age of 14, Peylia, as she was called, started winning Blues tour among blues giants such as Lightnin’ Hopkins,
talent shows at the Ellis Theater in her neighborhood. She won Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and others. Jackie Wilson, Rufus
so many times that management asked her to stop entering. Thomas and Otis Redding specifically requested Sugar Pie as
Undeterred, she traveled to Los Angeles and, at another talent opening act for her ability to stir a crowd into a frenzy.
show, caught the attention of R&B impresario Johnny Otis. Otis According to James Moore, Sr., Sugar Pie’s astute business
signed her and produced her first two singles on the Federal manager of the past 30 years, the greatest stage show he ever
record label in 1955, dubbing her “Little Miss Sugar Pie.” witnessed was when Sugar Pie opened for Jackie Wilson at
Sugar Pie married guitarist Alvin “Pee Wee” Parham a.k.a the Showcase nightclub in Oakland, CA, in the ‘60s: “Man,
Pee Wee Kingsley in 1957, and together they recorded sides guys were standing on the tables to get a look when she hit the
for the Godfather of Oakland Blues, Bob Geddins. When stage. I believe that was the most incredible show I’ve seen in
she and Kingsley recorded “I Want To Know” on Geddins’ my life. When Sugar Pie came out of the dressing room, she
Veltone label, it rose to #4 on the Billboard R&B chart – giving was already four feet off the floor. She hit the stage flying.”

68 Blues Festival Guide 2016