She was bigger than Coca-Cola in the segregated South, and Atlantic Records became known as the house that Ruth built. Then, in the 1960s, she vanished into suburban life, working as a maid and a bus driver, only to re-emerge decades later, win a Tony Award, and force the recording industry to rewrite its rules on artist pay. This episode explores the multi-act life of Ruth Brown, the original queen of rhythm and blues.

We follow Ruth Alston Weston from her father's church choir in Portsmouth, Virginia to running away at 17 with trumpeter Jimmy Brown, the management of Blanche Calloway, the Crystal Caverns in Washington, DC, and the horrific car crash that put her in the hospital for nine months on the way to her Atlantic audition. Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson signed her in her hospital bed, pushed her from jazz ballads toward driving rh ...