04/09/2024
1969....Rita Coolidge and Stephen Stills.
Whether you know her as the singer of “All Time High” from Oc*****sy or the woman at the heart of songs like “Delta Lady” by Leon Russell and “Cherokee” by Stephen Stills, you’ve heard of Rita Coolidge. She may not be as famous as the men who were obsessed with her throughout the 1960s and ‘70s, but she’s had a fascinating life filled with good tunes and good friends. Coolidge was a musical muse for artists like Kris Kristofferson, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and a slew of singer-songwriters, but she was a talent all on her own. With two Grammy Awards and a memoir under her belt, she’s just as accomplished as famous artists she came up with.
Born on May 1, 1945 in Lafayette, Tennessee, Coolidge bounced around Kentucky and Tennessee as the daughter of a Cherokee Baptist minister. She says that she was singing before she could talk and knew that she would be doing it for the rest of her life. After moving to Memphis in 1967 she found herself in the city’s music scene rubbing elbows with Booker T. & the M.G.’s as well as singers Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett. Along the way she met singer-songwriter Leon Russell who convinced her to move to Los Angeles with him and further her career. It wasn’t hard to persuade her and soon enough they hit the road.
In 1969 Rita Coolidge was one of the most in demand women in the industry. Seemingly at the center of multiple song writing sessions, both “Delta Lady” and “A Song For You” by Leon Russell and Joe Cocker are written about her, but the her relationship with the two singer-songwriters soured when she decided to get out of Russell and Cocker’s party heavy scene. In 2019 she said that she’s not entirely sure if “Delta Lady” is about her in spite of rumors to the contrary.
When Rita Coolidge met the members of Crosby, Stills, and Nash she had such an effect on Stephen Stills and Graham Nash that she’s still blamed by some as one of the major reasons behind the group’s break up. She met the group at a recording session and despite hitting it off with Graham Nash, Stills finagled his way into a date with her. His obsession with Coolidge built even after she ditched him to rekindle things with Nash.
Coolidge and Nash dated for more than a year, and in that time Stephen Stills tried to commit su***de after writing the name “Rita” on a hotel mirror in lipstick and he fought Nash over her in a drive way. She never had a romantic link with David Crosby, but he had his own obsession with her.
