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 rhythm and blues, and got “Teardrops from My Eyes,” which held number one for 11 weeks in 1950. We chart 149 weeks on the rhythm and blues charts between 1949 and 1955, life on the Chitlin Circuit, and the comeback Redd Foxx set in motion in 1975.

• How her crisp pop diction over a heavy backbeat created a crossover sound and the pop hit “Lucky Lips”
• Why Motown and the British Invasion pushed the pioneer off the stage
• The sitcom Hello, Larry, the role of Motormouth Maybelle in “Hairspray,” and the 1989 Tony for “Black and Blue”
• Recoupment, hidden fees, and half-cent royalties: the contracts that kept hit-makers broke
• The Rhythm and Blues Foundation, her 1989 Grammy, her 1993 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, and her death in 2006 at 78