Shirley Nanette – Never Coming Back
| Sello: | Satara Records – SATS-9, Satara Records – sats - 9 |
|---|---|
| Formato: | Vinilo, LP, Album, Stereo |
| País: | US |
| Publicado: | 1972 |
| Género: | Jazz, Funk / Soul |
| Estilo: | Soul-Jazz, Soul |
Lista de Títulos
| A1 | Give And Take | 2:48 | |
| A2 | I'm So Glad | 2:37 | |
| A3 | All Of Your Life | 4:09 | |
| A4 | Tropic Of Love | 2:30 | |
| A5 | Lime Light | 4:25 | |
| B1 | Heaven On Earth | 2:41 | |
| B2 | Sometimes | 3:35 | |
| B3 | Yours Truly Love | 4:05 | |
| B4 | People Are Thinking | 3:10 | |
| B5 | Never Coming Back | 2:58 |
Compañías, etc.
- Grabado en – Ripcord Recording Studios
- Distribuido por – S.M.I.
- Publicado por – Magic Dust
- Publicado por – Magic Dust Pub.
- Discográfica – Satar Music, Inc.
Créditos
- Alto Saxophone – George Lawson
- Arranged By, Producer – The Satara Music Society
- Baritone Saxophone – Dan Mason (2)
- Bass – (Little) George Brown
- Cover [Photo By] – John Gladics
- Drums – Dale Smith (9)
- Engineer [Recording] – Andy Thompson*
- Guitar [Rhythm, Lead] – Hanc Swarn*
- Music By, Lyrics By – Hanc Swarn*
- Organ [Electronic] – Billy Larkin
- Tenor Saxophone – Dan Mason (2), George Lawson
- Trumpet, Flugelhorn – T. Memory*
- Voice – Andrew Clay, Jr., Tracey Nanette
Notas
Satara Records - A division of Satara Music, Inc. - Portland, Oregon 97211
https://bigcrownrecords.bandcamp.com/album/never-coming-back
https://open.spotify.com/track/14Uv6bggLpXnL1pPN0Mzla
https://sites.google.com/site/shirleynanette2/jazz-society-of-oregons-hall-of-fame-induction-of-shirley-nanette
This article appeared in the JSO (Jazz Society of Oregon) newsletter called "Jazzscene" before the April 18th show.
Shirley Nanette. Named to 2013 Jazz Society of Oregon Hall of Fame. Concert and Induction Ceremony April 18 at Jimmy Mak’s.
By Yugen Rashad
Vocalist Shirley Nanette adores the color green. To her, green symbolizes emergence and freshness. “Things are growing,” she explains. “It’s movement. Don’t stop, get moving.” And so green also symbolizes her long career in music. Her longevity is due to her natural instinct to cull resonance from a lyric, phrasing that helps audiences feel real emotion, and the articulation of lived experience as wisdom. This is the performance magic that connects Ms. Nanette with an audience and informs her success.
And that’s why Ms. Nanette is the 2013 Inductee into the Jazz Society of Oregon Hall of Fame. This annual award is presented by JSO to musicians for excellence in performance and advocacy for the jazz art through education and community outreach. “Long overdue,” says fellow musician and friend Ron Steen. “Shirley is one of the finest jazz singers in United States; one of the best singers I’ve had the pleasure to work with.”
A stellar performer with demonstrated skill across genres, whether pop, torch, R&B, jazz, or gospel, Ms Nanette displays a nomenclature and music style that is head and shoulders above the norm. “I came up in the church and grew up in a home where music was always heard,” she says. She can even recall her mother telling stories about how she literally sang herself to sleep at night. “I did,” she says. “Since I was seven years old, singing has been my thing.” Her family linage might also have something to do with it. “My grandfather’s cousin on my mother’s side was Bessie Smith,” she explains. Evolving from such ripe DNA isn’t the only reason for her talent. But a connection like that certainly lifts one’s self-esteem and confidence. Before settling on jazz, though, Ms. Nanette considered other vocal styles; after all, she had the chops and wind for anything. “I wanted to be an opera singer,” she says. “And while in my twenties, I was introduced to an opera coach.” She pondered a career expansion after her work with the Oregon Symphony under the direction of Norman Leyden. But she ultimately stayed with jazz and related styles.
Ms. Nanette’s vocal powers grew as did her stature in the industry, fueled by a restless determination to be her best, to venture and challenge herself. And she found those challenges in a variety of styles and venues, from late-night spots in Portland like the Upstairs Lounge in the 1960s, where she met Ron Steen, and numerous dates opening for national touring acts coming through town, such as Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons at the old Civic Auditorium, to popular downtown clubs with local artists such as Count Dutch, Sonny King, Tom Grant, and her famous cousin, Mel Brown. Her induction into the Jazz Society’s Hall of Fame, Brown says, “… is well deserved, and I’m very proud.” Brown calls Ms. Nanette the last of the great entertainers. ”A lot of folks sing but don’t understand entertainment protocol in between songs,” he says. “She knows what to say to an audience.“ During the 1980s, Brown recalls, he first turned his cousin on to chicken wings in Las Vegas. She had just won Star Search, the nationally televised competition, and the Mel Brown Trio was in town backing Diana Ross, so Brown ended up backing Shirley, too - and broadening her taste in food. And speaking of connecting to au audience, one of Ms. Nanette’s fondest memories is of a fan she met at the Jazz Quarry. The woman had been ill, and before she died, she wanted to come hear her. “That touched me,“ she says. “That is deepest thing, because I never knew the depth of how much they loved me.” She also met the woman’s children. “They called me their surrogate mom,” she recalls. She would later be invited to their home for a wienie roast as part of the memorial service. Her love for children is supported by the numerous awards and invitations to community functions and events she’s been invited to in order to share her gift and mentor young aspiring artists. She recently garnered an award from Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church for her volunteer work and mentor ship. “Singing in a church choir is a wonderful opportunity offered to young people as a way to learn the craft,” she says. She also taught classes in arts and communications,voice and performance skills at the Arts Magnet Academy. Her community work reaches back to the 1970s, when she was a supervisor for the first wave of children involved in the federally mandated bus program when schools became racially integrated. “I’ve lived through some very interesting times,” she says, as she recalls society becoming more tolerant and race relations improving.
Her concerns for community health show over the years with her connection and volunteer work with American Lung Association, American Heart Association, and American Cancer Society. Being considerate to others is a life mantra she holds dear. “You may never understand what a person might be facing or going through in life,” she’s says. After concerts and gigs she still marvels over the confessions fans offer. The lyrics from the title tune to her studio recording, “Starting Here, Starting Now,” she believes, sum up her spirit and humanity. “I’ve lived through some very interesting times,” “When we walk, we walk together, year by year. When we talk, we say the most with silence, when we are near, starting here.”
So, when will Ms. Nanette stop? Does the music ever end? “I’m going as long as my ability allows. I will know when to stop. Not there yet.” She can still hit those high and low notes. “I’ve learned how to maneuver,” she says with a smile. Indeed, Ms Nanette has a humorous side that comes out when she’s talking with her friends. “Shirley’s impersonations are a riot,” says Steen. “It confounds you to hear coming from her mouth the voices of Satchmo, Dinah Washington, Esther Phillips – it makes you smile, and marvel at her gift.” And that fits her approach to music as well. Become the song. Live the melody, be the performance that makes the composition relevant to an audience. It’s why Shirley Nanette is a treasure. And for her, the musical landscape remains green and in bloom. “Keep it fresh, keep it moving,” she says.
https://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/give-and-take/Content?oid=11946360
THE LIFE of any musician is filled with moments that could have sent her career down a completely different path. For Shirley Nanette, it was the recording of Never Coming Back in 1973.
The 66-year-old singer is now a well-established icon of the Portland jazz community, performing regular club gigs throughout the city. But back in the late '60s and early '70s, the goal was to stake her claim as the next big thing in soul and R&B, with a collection of loose, funky tunes that spoke of the power of love and equality.
Alas, it was not to be. Attempts to get the sessions released by one of the major labels of the day came to naught, and the 500 privately pressed albums that Nanette and her husband Al made left her with boxes of vinyl in her basement.
While she isn't hurting for work or recognition these days, Nanette is reclaiming at least a small part of her previous musical life with the help of Truth & Soul Records. The Brooklyn-based label reissued Never Coming Back last month, with lovers of rare groove and historians of '70s soul singing its praises at long last.
"I worked really hard on that album," Nanette says. "It's amazing to me that after 40 years, all of a sudden, there's this huge interest in this LP."
The return of Never Coming Back actually involves the other part of the US hipster-city triumvirate, Austin, Texas, and one of its longtime residents, David Haffner. The owner of the Friends of Sound record store and licensing company Magnetic Recordings stumbled upon a copy of the album while crate digging in Fort Worth.
"I found it in the 'gospel' section," Haffner says. "I looked on the back and recognized a couple of the names on it, like Billy Larkin. I figured out quickly it wasn't really a gospel record, and after I gave it a listen, I was pretty blown away." Haffner found kindred spirits in the folks at Truth & Soul, who agreed to fund the reissue.
Even for its time, Never Coming Back feels rough around the edges—likely due to the fact that the recording session at Vancouver, Washington's Ripcord Studio was so short.
"We had one day," Nanette says. "One day! It didn't turn out too bad, though. But if we'd have had at least a week, it would have been so polished, it would have been incredible."
What the songs lack in sonic depth, they make up for in power. The Meters-style workout of "All of Your Life" and the smoothly horn-inflected "Sometimes" are spirited, joyous tunes, driven by guitarist Hank Swarn's supple playing and the occasional flash of the horn section (including future Grammy winner Thara Memory). Of course, the strength of the album is Nanette. She's not a showy vocalist, but uses the clean, placid tones of her instrument expertly, mixing the jazzy inflections of Dinah Washington with the soulfulness of Gladys Knight.
Emboldened by her work, Nanette and her husband took a trip to California in 1973 to shop the album around and hopefully get a nationwide release. But, as she remembers, "It wasn't what anyone wanted to hear at the time. Jazz was really, really popular, so more pop and middle-of-the-road stuff was harder to get out there."
As dismaying as it was, Nanette didn't let it slow her down. She kept singing in various soul bands through the '70s before drifting toward the jazz scene in Portland, where she has been a fixture ever since. It may not have made her a household name, but to talk with her, she never gives the impression that she has any regrets about twists or turns her life has taken. That even goes for the brain aneurysm that she suffered last year.
"I'm a walking, talking, singing miracle," Nanette says. "They found, they fixed, and so... here I am."
