January 21, 2014

Bettye Swann’s Soul Retrospective Deserves the Hype

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Bettye Swann
The Complete Atlantic Recordings
Real Gone Music

Bettye Swann scored just two minor pop hits during her prime—1967’s “Make Me Yours” and 1969’s “Don’t Touch Me”—but this magnificent singer has inspired cult devotion for good reason. Blessed with a striking, husky voice tinged by elegant melancholy, the Louisiana-born Swann epitomized deep soul, planting herself at the intersection of R&B and country, where unadorned emotion took precedence over flashy display. The Complete Atlantic Recordings picks up her story in 1972, compiling the 23 tracks she cut for the label through 1976, after which she disappeared from the music scene.

Swann is at her compelling best on slow-burning gems like “I’d Rather Go Blind” and the Nashville standard “Today I Started Loving You Again,” but produces the same intimate intensity in songs that rely on dance beats (“I Feel the Feeling”). While some long-lost artists merit just a passing glance today, Bettye Swann deserves the hype.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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