Singer Ruth Brown, whose recordings of “Teardrops in My Eyes,” “5-10-15 Hours” and “(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean” shot her to rhythm-and-blues stardom in the 1950s, died Friday (Nov. 24, 2006). She was 78.
Brown, who later in life won a Grammy and a Tony, died of complications from a stroke and heart attack at a Las Vegas-area hospital.
Brown’s soulful voice produced dozens of hits for Atlantic Records, cementing the fledgling record label’s reputation as an R&B powerhouse. Trained in a church choir in her hometown of Portsmouth, Va., Brown sang a range of style from jazz to gospel-blues in such hits as “So Long” and “Teardrops in My Eyes.”
She later crossed over into rock ‘n’ roll with some success with “Lucky Lips” and “This Little Girl’s Gone Rockin’,” a song she co-wrote with Bobby Darin.
Brown enjoyed a career renaissance in the mid-70s when she began recording blues and jazz tunes for a variety of labels and found success on the stage and in movies.
She won acclaim in the R&B musical “Staggerlee” and won a Tony Award for best actress in the Broadway revue “Black and Blue.” She also played a feisty deejay in the 1988 cult movie “Hairspray.” A year later, she won a Grammy for best jazz vocal performance for the album “Blues on Broadway.”