"I'd Rather Go Blind" is a Blues song written by Ellington Jordan and co-credited to Billy Foster. It was first recorded by Etta James in 1968, and has subsequently become regarded as a blues and soul classic.
Original version by Etta James

Etta James wrote in her autobiography Rage To Survive that she heard the song outlined by her friend Ellington "Fugi" Jordan when she visited him in prison. She then wrote the rest of the song with Jordan, but for tax reasons gave her songwriting credit to her partner at the time, Billy Foster.

Etta James recorded the song at the FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It was included on the album Tell Mama and as the B-side of the single of the same name which made number 10 on the Billboard R&B charts and number 23 on the pop charts. The song is also on the 1978 Jerry Wexler-produced album Deep In The Night but it is titled Blind Girl (track 10). Some critics have regarded "I'd Rather Go Blind" as of such emotional and poetic quality that it makes that release one of the great double-sided singles of the period. Critic Dave Marsh put the song in his book The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made (number 429).

Other versions

It has since been recorded by a wide variety of artists, including Clarence Carter, blind from birth, on his 1969 album The Dynamic Clarence Carter. Other recordings include those by Little Milton, Chicken Shack, Koko Taylor, Man Man, Rod Stewart, B.B. King, Paul Weller, Ruby Turner, Marcia Ball, Sydney Youngblood and Beyoncé Knowles for the Cadillac Records Soundtrack. Trixie Whitley has made it her signature song.

The song reached number 14 on the UK pop charts in 1969 in a version by British blues band Chicken Shack, featuring Christine Perfect, later to become Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac.

Rod Stewart covered the song on his 1972 album Never a Dull Moment. Etta James refers to Stewart's version favorably in her autobiography, Rage to Survive.

A version of the song was the follow-up single to UK singe