Known for her powerful voice, Sweet Betty Journey passed away on June 20,
2026, at the age of seventy-six, three days before her 77th birthday.
She had been suffering from serious health issues, and according to the
Music Maker Relief Foundation (which I thank for providing the information
needed to write this article), she had even spent ten months in the
hospital in 2024…
She was born Elizabeth S. Echols on June 23, 1949, in Duluth, Georgia,
about fifty kilometers northeast of Atlanta. With a mother who sang in
church, she got her start in gospel music before moving to Atlanta. After
singing at parties for friends, she decided in the mid-1980s to make music
her career and worked with saxophonist Grady “Fats” Jackson, who recorded
with Big Joe Turner in 1953 as part of a band that also included Elmore
James.
After Jackson’s death in 1994, she accompanied Bob Margolin, among others,
and in 1997, she recorded “They Call Me Sweet Betty” for JSP—a fine album
that I reviewed in issue 151 of Soul Bag. In fact, it was Margolin who
introduced her the following year to Music Maker, which would support her
in 2003 and enable her to release another remarkable album in 2004, *Live
and Let Live*.
Sweet Betty would not record again but continued to perform and tour in
the Atlanta area. I invite you to listen to a track from her first album,
*They Call Me Sweet Betty*, and one from her second, *Walk the Street*.