Fontella Marie Bass (July 3, 1940 – December 26, 2012) was an American R&B and soul singer and songwriter best known for her number-one R&B hit "Rescue Me" in 1965.
Fontella Bass was born in St. Louis, Missouri. She was the daughter of gospel singer Martha Bass, who was a member of the Clara Ward Singers, and the older sister of R&B singer David Peaston. At an early age, Fontella showed great musical talent. At the age of five, she provided the piano accompaniment for her grandmother's singing at funeral services, she sang in her church's choir at six, and by the time she was nine, she had accompanied her mother on tours throughout the South and Southwest America. Bass continued touring with her mother until age of sixteen. As a teenager, Bass was attracted by more secular music. She began singing R&B songs at local contests and fairs while attending Soldan High School from which she graduated in 1958. At 17, she started her professional career working at the Showboat Club near Chain of Rocks, Missouri. In 1961, she auditioned for the Leon Claxton carnival show and was hired to play piano and sing in the chorus for two weeks it was in town. It was during this brief stint with Claxton that she was heard by vocalist Little Milton and his bandleader Oliver Sain who hired her to back Little Milton on piano for concerts and recording. Bass originally only played piano with the band, but one night Milton didn't show up on time so Sain asked her to sing and she was soon given her own featured vocal spot in the show.
Bass recorded several songs released through Bobbin Records She was produced by Ike Turner when she recorded on his labels Prann and Sonja. Her single "Poor Little Fool" released from Sonja in 1964 features Tina Turner. Two years later she quit the Milton band and moved to Chicago after a dispute with Oliver Sain. She auditioned for Chess Records, who immediately signed her as a recording artist to the subsidiary label Checker Records. Her first works with the label were several duets with Bobby McClure, who had also been signed to the label. Released early in 1965, their recording "Don't Mess Up a Good Thing" (credited to Oliver Sain) found immediate success, reaching #5 on the Billboard R&B chart and peaking at #33 on the Hot 100. Bass and McClure followed their early success with "You'll Miss Me (When I'm Gone)" that summer, a song that had mild success, reaching the Top 30 on the R&B chart, although it made no significant impression on the pop chart. After a brief tour, Bass returned to the studio.
That year, Bass co-wrote and recorded the song "Rescue Me" which shot up the charts in the fall and winter of 1965. After a month-long run at the top of the R&B charts, the song reached #4 on the US pop charts and #11 in the UK, and gave Chess its first million-selling single since Chuck Berry a decade earlier. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. Bass followed with "Recovery," which did moderately well, peaking at #13 (R&B) and #37 (pop) in early 1966. The same year brought two more R&B hits, "I Can't Rest" (backed with "I Surrender)" and "You'll Never Know." Her only album with Chess Records, The New Look, sold reasonably well, but Bass soon became disillusioned with Chess and decided to leave the label after only two years, in 1967.
Tired of the mainstream music scene, she and husband Lester Bowie left America and moved to Paris in 1969, where she recorded two albums with the Art Ensemble of Chicago – Art Ensemble of Chicago with Fontella Bass and Les Stances a Sophie (both 1970).
The next few years found Bass at a number of labels, but saw no notable successes. After her second album, Free, flopped in 1972, Bass retired from music. On December 26, 2012, she died at a St. Louis hospital from complications of a heart attack suffered earlier in the month; she was 72.
