Marlena Shaw - Spice of Life (soul) (wav)

Marlena Shaw is a singer. Born Marlina Burgess in 1942, New Rochelle, New York. Marlena Shaw began her singing career in the 1960s and is still singing today. Her music crossed genre boundaries and was enjoyed by people of all races. Her strongest fan base was in the African American community. Her music has reached out and touched all forms of music, and is still seen today as samples in hip hop songs, and in commercials on TV. Her uncle, Jimmy Burgess a jazz trumpet player, first introduced her to music. In an interview with The New York Times, she told the reporter “He [Jimmy Burgess] introduced me to good music through records---Dizzy [Gillespie], Miles [Davis], a lot of gospel things, and Al Hibbler, who really knows how to phrase a song.” In 1952, her uncle Jimmy brought her on stage at the Apollo Theater in Harlem to sing with him and his band. This was her first performance, and the audience loved her. Shaw’s mother did not want her daughter to go on tour with her uncle at such a young age and refused to let her go. Instead, she enrolled Shaw into the New York State Teachers College in Potsdam (now known as the State University of New York at Potsdam) to study music. She later dropped out of school, got married, and had five children. She did not give up on her singing career. She began to make singing appearances in jazz clubs whenever she could spare the time. This most notable of these appearances was in 1963 when she worked with jazz trumpeter Howard McGhee. She was supposed to play at the famous Newport Jazz Festival with McGhee and his band, but left the group after getting into an argument with one of the band members. Later that year, she got an audition with legendary Columbia label talent scout John Hammond. John Hammond had discovered talents including Billie Holiday, Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, and Bob Dylan. Shaw did not perform well during the audition because she was too nervous. Undiscouraged, she continued to play at small clubs in 1964 until 1966. Her career took off in 1966 when she landed a gig with the Playboy Club chain in Chicago. It was through this gig that she met with representatives the music label Chess Records, and soon signed with them.[1] Shaw was discovered by Chess Records in 1966. She released her first two albums on their subsidiary Cadet Records. She moved to Blue Note Records in 1972, and was that label's first female artist. She also recorded one of the Disco Era's biggest hits - a remake of "Touch Me in the Morning" on Columbia Records. Shaw still performs and records today. In the year 2001 and in 2007 Marlena Shaw was one of the performers at the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands.



Buyer's comments

You could fill a mansion with both rock and soul records by people that put an album out, and sank into obscurity. The differance is, in soul, you really had to be good--at singing or playing- to even get onto wax. The music demands a good voice, and the ability to lock into syncopated rythms. It would be fun to find out exactly why Aretha Franklin became an international superstar, while people just as good remain unknown.



Marlena Shaw is a case and point: She has a great voice, the ability to sing sweet soul, grittiy southern soul, and jazz. For a soul album, this is very, very diverse, and everything works. Shaw even does some out and out scatting on this--not easy to do--and is a master.