An R&B Queen Reigns in Miss Rhythm: The Legend of Ruth Brown at Stages

They’re talking about the house that Ruth built over at Stages.

No, not Yankee Stadium. Not Babe Ruth.

The house, in this case, is Atlantic Records, and Stages is talking about Ruth Brown, whose musical talents and string of No. 1 hits propped up Atlantic when it was just a little startup label and whose life and legacy are featured in Miss Rhythm: The Legend of Ruth Brown, now playing on their Rochelle and Max Levit Stage.

Brown’s name isn’t heard as much these days, though she was crowned the “Queen of Rhythm and Blues” in the ‘50s, is a possessor of both a Tony and a Grammy, and is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This approximately 80-minute, intermission-less cabaret-style production seeks to rectify this situation. Created by David Nehls and Sheryl McCallum, this “peek inside the Book of Ruth” – literally based on Brown’s autobiography, Miss Rhythm: The Autobiography of Ruth Brown, Rhythm and Blues Legend, written with Andrew Yule and released in 1996 – is designed to both introduce Brown to new audiences and maybe teach those that may recognize the name and know a song or two more about her.

Nehls and McCallum tell Brown’s story in a linear fashion. We go from her parents’ meeting and her upbringing in Portsmouth, Virginia, where the then Ruth Weston sang with her father and in church, to her teen years, when she would sneak into clubs, eventually deciding to run away from home to pursue “devil music” against her father’s wishes. We learn about her relationship with Jimmy Earl Brown, which got her a brief musical partnership, an annulled marriage, and the last name we know her by today. We find out that it was her meeting with Blanche Calloway, older sister of Cab and an orchestra leader in her own right, that led her to the men over at Atlantic Records, who signed her from a hospital bed, where she lay recovering from a terrible accident. The suits from Atlantic also convinced her to move from ballads to rhythm and blues, with the hits raining down after. That said, the years that followed didn’t all treat Brown as kindly.

McCallum serves as the evening’s storyteller, supported by a five-piece band. She doesn’t play Brown per se, but she embodies her persona so well as she regales with stories and performs some of Brown’s greatest tunes, that it’s easy to forget that she doesn’t. It’s McCallum’s skill at channeling Brown that allays possibly the first and biggest concern about Miss Rhythm: That the biographical text wrapped around the music would end up being the equivalent of someone reading from a Wikipedia page. It doesn’t – not between Kenny Moten’s snappy direction and the vivacious McCallum.

McCallum plays to the crowd with ease, and it’s not long before everyone is in the palm of her hand. Early on, she encourages the audience to engage – just as Brown would have wanted it – and clap their hands and tap their toes to the music. And, to be fair, there is an irresistible stream of toe-tappers in the show, which kicks off with a couple: “This Little Girl’s Gone Rockin’,” “Mambo Baby,” and “I Want to Do More.”

McCallum makes it look easy as she tackles Brown’s biggest hits, like “Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean” and “5-10-15 Hours,” which gets an assist from Ronnie “King” Mason, Jr. The smooth-voiced Mason, Jr., the show’s pianist and conductor, has great chemistry with McCallum and the crowd, even engaging in a pre-show drink with them. On the ballad side, “Be Anything (But Be Mine)” is the production’s first showstopper, and a good part of that can be attributed to Brent Nabors, who plays tenor and baritone sax in the show. “Wild, Wild Young Men” is used to chilling effect to reflect the realities of being Black and traveling in segregated times, and the wistful “Oh What a Dream,” associated with Brown’s decline, is hauntingly beautiful.

Brown herself brought a certain theatricality to the stage, and McCallum owns it as well, particularly on numbers like “Cabbage Head” and “If I Can’t Sell It, I’ll Keep Sittin’ on It,” the latter of which, delightfully bawdy and suggestive, might be reason enough to see the show all by itself.

The set, from Scenic Designer Joel Burkholder and Properties Designer Jodi Bobrovsky, is intimate and perfect for the production. Imagined as a smoky little club – Club Levit, to be exact, a nod to the Gordy stage on which the show is being performed – with each aspect reminiscent of days past. The past glows with a modern style, especially under Janessa A. Harris’s lighting designs.

There’s a timelessness to Meghan Anderson Doyle’s costume designs, too, and of note is McCallum’s lovely red pantsuit. It’s adorned with long stretches of fabric on the sides, giving it the appearance of a dress, which turns out to be very practical during a great moment that won’t be spoiled here. But the past is always present, especially with that old-fashioned, Shure 55-style mic standing on the stage. That mic proved incredibly crucial to the show, though not in a way anyone probably hoped.

First, there were some lovely touches in the sound design by Edward Ryan Thornton, like the tinny music that greets you as you enter Club Levit. But McCallum’s mic didn’t work, forcing her to carry that old-fashioned, Shure 55-style standing mic all around the stage. McCallum, however, was a pro. If not for the way the sound dropped when McCallum ventured a step too far away (and some jarring noise earlier in the show), it probably wouldn’t have been that noticeable.

The one aspect of the production that gives me pause is the use of video screens to display song information. Two screens flank the stage, displaying music video-style details about each song that undermines the show’s vibe more than a little. On the other hand, our first glimpse of the real Brown is on those screens, via a black-and-white clip from the ‘50s of Brown being introduced by Willie Bryant on an episode of Showtime at the Apollo, and some of the production’s most moving moments are shown on those screens, like footage of Brown’s Tony Award acceptance speech and a bit of Bonnie Raitt’s speech during Brown’s induction. So, they definitely add something overall.

Both those moments show Brown’s legacy being cemented, albeit fairly late. Brown went through a 20-year legal battle to get the royalties owed to her and flipped her experiences into the creation of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in 1988, and this is probably the part of Brown’s life, the part not singing on a stage, that gets the least attention by the public but plays an important part in her legacy, too. Luckily, there’s now a show out there where you can get the best of both worlds – Brown’s unforgettable music and the legacy that should be just as unforgettable.

Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays, and 2:30 p.m. Sundays through October 13. For more information, call 713-537-0123 or visit stageshouston.com. $52-$105.