Judith Owen – Being herself, unapologetically
by Matteo Bossi
In a career spanning over thirty years, Judith Owen’s journey has been a quite singular one. As a singer, songwriter, actress, performer, the welsh lady has been fearlessly exploring her wide musical vision. The last few years, since her 2022 album, “Come On & Get It”, have seen diving deep in the repertoires of some of her favorite blues, rhythm and blues and jazz female artists from the Forties and Fifties, like Nellie Lutcher, Julia Lee, Blossom Dearie or Mary Lou Williams. A project born during the pandemic that she took on tour with a stellar band, the Gentlemen Callers, with the likes of piano great David Torkanowsky (Irma Thomas, Johnny Adams and countless others), drummer Jamison Ross (Snarky Puppy, Jon Cleary…) and the trumpet player Kevin Louis. We had the chance to talk to her a couple of weeks before her gig at Milan’s Blue Note.
You’ve done very different things over the years showing a very eclectic taste and a versatility in your approach to music that is very rare. How did you manage to do that, I suppose it was no strategy.
It’s not a strategy at all. It doesn’t make life easy when you’re an artist for me, that’s what I believe, your job is to go wherever you need to go…you grow, you learn, you’re inspired by life, by things, by music, by everything around you. It’s like telling a painter that you could only paint that one painting over and over again and not do anything else. It’s crazy. But somehow when it comes to the music business, the industry is very much about pigeonholing so that it is easy to sell…and that works perfectly for a lot of people as a business model. But it doesn’t work for your artistry. So it’s not that I chose to be this way, it’s just who I am. And I think that I have crossed many lines and I blurred many lines because that’s exactly who I am. I love many types of music and I would never ever do anything that wasn’t in me to do. I would never try to do something that wasn’t natural to me. My love of music is broad. I grew up as a classical baby, with an opera singing father and a big band loving mother, who would listen to jazz and blues in the house all the time. But then also to music from America, from Stevie Wonder to James Taylor and Joni Mitchell…everything. And so I don’t have a pigeonhole for a brain! And I’m also very theatrical, music is language, it’s a vocabulary and these different styles are basically different dialects. That’s all. I think music in the world is coming around more to this understanding that people can do more than one thing and should be able and absolutely encouraged to keep growing and learning and expanding…the artists that I love, like Stevie Wonder, are the kind of artists who did not see any boundaries in music, he didn’t feel like he had to be one thing, he did what he heard, what he wanted and that’s why he’s so extraordinary.
You play by your own rules.
Somebody once said this to me, and I believe this, you’re either in this business, or in the world of creativity, for like a short period and so you want to explode and maybe have that big hit and at one point I was destined to be that person and have that huge career of pop stardom and of course it wen horribly wrong when the head of the record company leaves…but that’s not the story. I know that thing. So you either in it for a short burst or you are a lifetime long road artist. You’re taking the long road. It’s harder but what you get to do is you become a lifer…it’s the love of your life. You’re not repeating one thing for your whole career. Nobody has a problem with Lady Gaga, for example, being a pop artist, a stage artist, an actress…nobody says no you can’t do that, nobody has the right to say that. You should do what you do, everything you’re good at. That’s my belief. It’s the shortsightedness of the business to ever tell people they can’t do something because they have to stick to the one thing that will make money. I consider myself to be a lifer. I will continue to learn and grow, as long as everything I do has a level of excellence, that’s what I do.
So it comes from your family too, your dad listened to Beethoven or Puccini and he enjoyed just as much listening to jazz and blues, so it could be done. You said before that “Come On And Get It” originated from the fun you had listening to “Fine Brown Frame” as a child, from singers like Nellie Lutcher, Julia Lee…
That’s exactly it. I give you an example of how special and open and accepting my childhood was of all music. On a Saturday morning my sister and I would be up at Covent Garden seeing my father in rehearsals, watching Puccini or whatever it might be and loving every second of it. Then we would go home and my dad would be in the music room, with the piano and everything, and we’d be listening to Nellie Lutcher or Oscar Peterson, Frank Sinatra or whatever it might be. Those women, Nellie Lutcher, Julia Lee, Pearl Bailey, Dinah Washington, Blossom Dearie, Peggy Lee…all of them but definitively Nellie and Julia they made my eyes go wild, I almost jump out of my skin when I first heard them. Because it was so confident, self-assured and unique, a sound like nobody else had. So in the morning it was all classical in the afternoon we’d be in the jazz and blues world…the point is nothing seemed from a different world, it was all music. You see somebody like Oscar Peterson, Wayne Shorter or Wynton Marsalis…they’re all extraordinary classical musicians, there is no divide, this is the art of music. Knowing right from the beginning that it was one world, if it moves you if you love it…that’s it.
Judith Owen
For some reason artists like Nellie Lutcher, Julia Lee and Rose Murphy seem to be almost forgotten nowadays, even though some of their songs were hits on the rhythm and blues charts.
Well, you know the sad truth…and I saw Nellie as an eighty years old when I first came to America in the late Nineties, I became friends with her granddaughter who was in the room with me and I did not know that. She was there at that same show. That was extraordinary for me, because my dad never got to see her, he was a kid when he first heard her, her songs were hit in Britain. Because where did black artists go to be treated properly and have a career? They came to Europe, to Britain. She was a star, she was mobbed by fans and she had the police escort her when she did shows in London in huge theaters. It was extraordinary how quickly she came and went. And I think the reason for that is because she was so special, singular and unique. Julia Lee is forgotten because she was scared to travel. These women were seen as being novelties but also the difference between them and Dinah Washington is that Dinah had huge hits for the white market and radio. Nellie and Julie had hits but it wasn’t on that level, it was still for the african-american audience. She had a hit with Nat King Cole, “For You My Love”, but nothing compared to Dinah. Obviously Peggy Lee was white and she was a big star, but she struggled because people in America thought she was black. It’s crazy. Ella Fitzgerald was different, she was th queen, she was singing romantic music and standards, she crossed into that white market perfectly. But Nellie or Blossom Dearie were unique, one of a kind, didn’t play by the rules. They were themselves but again it was not easy to sell, you could not put them into a category. Now it breaks my heart that nobody knows these women. No one. Mary Lou Williams luckily has a festival in New York, so people know her name and remember her, Rose Murphy no one remembers her at all, it’s interesting…I found out so much incredible information about that period. You know Cab Calloway was sucha huge star but it was his sister who was the band leader and a conductor before him, she taught him how to do this. But she came and went like that…because again she was just seen as a female novelty, unless you played by the rules you were a novelty. I feel very strongly that these women opened the doors to so many people, they were the precursors to the Nina Simones, the Arethas, the women at the piano…
Nellie Lutcher played piano and Julia Lee too.
Yes, all of them. And for me being a piano playing kid it was astonishing to hear that. They were so badass and role models for me. Once I found out more about the stories, like speaking with Nellie’s granddaughter, my respect grew even more, what she achieved, how tough the business was and how unfair, she didn’t even get her royalties on her own music. The usual thing. The racism, touring around the south in America, she and her band were constantly on the threat of being killed…that’s how it was. It’s the most extraordinary thing when you learn this. You hear it in the music, in the power of her and if you get the opportunity to see any of the few videos from tv shows of her performing live you could see it.
Indeed they are the missing link between the Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith generation and the Nina Simone or Aretha Franklin generation, still people don’t know how their songs were full of sass and irony…
And sex! And that’s another thing. Nice girls like Ella sang romantic songs, classics like Gerschwin, Cole Porter. While these women sang about female sexuality in a way that had wit and fun and humor, but it was for a black audience. White people were too frail or too delicate…that’s how it was in those days. That’s why Dinah Washington had two careers, one for the white market and the other for the black market. The ones I sing are for the black market, because they’re son fun, sexy and brilliant and that’s it. And then you get Blossom Dearie who’s coming in with wit, humor and what a voice, I always say the she looks like a librarian and sing like a sex kitten! It’s incredible. You know she’s one of the few white artist that Miles Davis liked. He really thought she was it, because of her phrasing and her piano playing. And she was. Really special.
Judith Owen
It comes to mind the difference between the two live records of Sam Cooke, the Live at Copacabana one in front of a white audience an The Harlem Square Club for a black audience. In the latter you really can hear the sweat and the badass.
That’s exactly it! And it’s what you see now and love…it’s part of rock’n’roll, that’s what the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and all the British Invasion groups wanted, they saw Howlin’ Wolf, James Brown, Sam Cooke, Chuck Berry…all of these artists, it was unapologetically alive and sexy. That’s what then was the launch pad for the British Invasion, much to the shock of the likes of Little Richard that kind of created it and got no thanks at all. That’s why Elvis could shake his hips and scare the girls, make them scream, he was allowed because he was white. If it was a black artist doing that they would go, no, no…It’s a shameful part of American history, but it how music evolved and became the way it is and how it influenced all of us. Me listening to my dad collection and knowing that this was the most exciting music I had ever heard. As a child I heard something that made me want to be that way. The confidence, the power…I have to say the thing that makes me the most happy when I perform live is how many young women I have in the audience…and they come up to me afterward and say “I want to be you when I grow up”. And I’m like, “So do I, because you never grow up!” That is the great compliment I could have, I felt that way about these women. I’m shocked, I don’t see myself that way, but that means so much to me. And don’t get me wrong, men relate to it as well. I embody that, that is what it is all about, they taught me that you have to be yourself, live with who you are and not copy anyone else. It’s the beauty of seeing a female confidence, and confidence is sexy. On stage I’m confident, not in the rest of my life as much, I’m getting better but we all struggle, on stage I’m at home with myself and what I do and I’m enjoying myself more than words can say. We all want to be comfortable in our own skin and we all want to not have to apologize for who we are.
How does New Orleans has influenced your music, you have been living there for a lot of years.
Oh I mean this is where it all started, the birthplace of jazz, Louis Armstrong, Louis Prima and Mahalia Jackson and Professor Longhair and Dr John and it goes on and on. The way New Orleans influences me it’s very straightforward. This city has a living, thriving, healthy, extraordinary live music scene. Unlike everywhere else in the world where it’s gone or it’s a mess and Covid also killed so many places. Here you can go see anywhere up to thirty great things happening of a great level, not just jazz and blues but all music. And people that are not from here like me, come here, because it’s one of the last places I know of where music is necessary, and it’s not history book, it’s real, exciting, live and fresh and new. It’ all there and there is a community here, a sense of shared experience among the musicians, people really want to see greatness and share it and nurture it and be inspired by it. And this is unusual, rare. And it also attracts fine artists, painters, sculptors and writers, novelists…extraordinary creative people. Right now it is leading up to Mardi Gras and the creativity of the people that live in the city is mindblowing. They spend all year working on their costumes…and you can’t believe what you’re looking at, it’s extraordinary, the music, the marching bands, the food, the sense of humor…I mean you get a whole group of people dressed like Elvis on scooters! This is one of many and there is no advertising, nobody pays for anything, this comes from the people for the people. This is a gift to the city and to people visiting. It really does sum up how the city is so inspiring. If you want artistic freedom and if you want, like me being a brit, let go of all that uptight…because I’m not a very uptight person but I’m British, Welsh so…if you want to get rid of that and just be yourself, dress up, wear costumes, buy a hat, it’s fun and nobody cares. Everybody encourages you to celebrate life, whether in a second line which is the most joyful feel in the world, Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest…whatever it is. This city knows hot to make lemonade out of lemons. It’s been faced with darkness and pain, cruelty…everything, it’s a dark history, but it’s about making beauty out of something terrible. It all came from a strange dark place, it started with slavery, it mixes with the carribean, it mixes with cajun, with the whites, sex, the brothels…then you get the perfect blend, the gumbo, the thing that changed the landscape of music forever, it changed everything. Luckily this place is still giving and it’s amazing for a tiny place, 300.000 people live here, it’s like a big town. The amount of creativity is like nothing I have ever seen anywhere else. I still have a home in Britain, I always will, I’m between these two worlds, but this has been my american base since 2007 and before that it was going back and forth constantly because I love it so much. I didn’t understand why we were in L.A. but my husband’s work is there so that’s why. They call it the most northern carribean city and it is. Certainly not America.
And the “Come On And Get It” album, you recorded it in New Orleans
I was stuck here during Covid, I was so depressed…and you know locally here people was playing in the streets and porches, having garden concerts, because this is an outdoor place and it allows you to do that, thanks God. I decided that “now is the time to do this thing that I’ve always wanted to do. To see how it sounded when I sing a Nellie Lutcher song and “Fine Brown Frame” was the first thing I tried. I wanted to make a record that was joyful and full of that happiness in a bottle. And even the most recent Big Band Christmas album it’s from the same place. I want people to be uplifted and smile when they hear it, like when I perform and I see people dancing, in this strange and scary world right now, that’s the point of it all.
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