Jackie
Richardson
Back for 20th Anniversary WBR
Jackie Richardson (right) is featured at this year's Women's Blues Revue, the 20th anniversary of the event, with her daughter Kim Richardson, Sue Foley, Ellen McIlwaine, Rita Chiarelli, Diana Braithwaite and Saidah Baba Talibah, along with the WBR band led by Lily Sazz. The concert takes place at 8:00 p.m. on Nov. 25 at Massey Hall.
Blues is a hard road, and over the years the Women's Blues Revue has helped performers who otherwise would have difficulty getting their names out, says singer Jackie Richardson.
WBR performers, who hail from different regions in the country, get Canada-wide exposure as the concert is broadcast live (with a 3-hour delay).
Richardson is featured at this year's WBR, the 20th anniversary of the event, with her daughter
Kim Richardson, Sue Foley, Ellen
McIlwaine, Rita Chiarelli, Diana
Braithwaite and Saidah Baba Talibah, along with the the WBR Band led by
Lily Sazz. The concert takes place at Massey Hall at 8:00
p.m. on Nov. 25.
Richardson has appeared at the WBR several times since its birth in a tiny venue on Queen Street West, the Club Rhythm. It moved to a church from the club, then on to a small concert hall and finally to Massey Hall, where it's now in its third consecutive year. "Ending up in Massey Hall, that's huge progress," she says.
Richardson, a blues, gospel and jazz singer who is also a stage, film and television actor, didn't start out singing the blues. In the mid-1960s, at 15, Richardson, her sister Betty and two other singers were part of a girl group called the Tiaras. They sang Motown covers by groups like the Supremes and the Marvelettes, and they had their first gig at the Jewish Y at Spadina and Bloor in Toronto. It was in the early '80s that Richardson began singing the blues, on singer Salome Bey's urging.
"Salome said to me, 'The tone of your voice is suitable for the blues.' I said, 'Yeah, one day.' Then she said, 'Here's a blues play - you sing, I'll direct.'" The play was Madam Gertrude, about Ma Rainy, and the first of many music theatre productions in which Richardson was to star.
Richardson encourages women of colour to learn about blues history and keep the flame going. At one time, blues was the only artistic vehicle for women of colour to express themselves, she says. "I would hate to see that being lost. It is a very important part of our history."
Richardson, who has never been a singer exclusively, attributes her diverse and successful career to good advice she received. "I've listened to people who guided me to try different things," she says. If she wasn't working as singer, she had a theatre role; if she wasn't on stage, she did television or film, all of which helped her to survive as an artist living in Canada. She notes that we have many talented people here - including young people graduating from music courses at schools like Humber College - competing for very little work.
The stage role for which Richardson received the most media attention - and for which she won a Dora Award - was as Alberta Hunter in Cookin' at the Cookery. Cookin had its Canadian premiere in Winnipeg, opened in Toronto in 2003 and recently toured to Vancouver. "The part was a dream role to do. Especially for a woman my age - it is hard to find a part I can sink my teeth into," she says.
The Georgia Straight raved about Richardson's performance in Cookin'. The reviewer wrote: "Richardson... is a phenomenon of talent and charm. There are times when rhythm, tone and joy come pouring out of her at such a rate that the experience would be dizzying if it weren't so much fun. And Richardson works the crowd with such sincerity and enthusiasm that most people in the opening-night audience left the theatre feeling like she was a friend."
Richardson was in the cast of a 2005 Toronto production of Ain't Misbehavin' with her daughter Kim. "I am just enamoured with her musicality," Richardson says. "Before she could even walk, I knew music was in her bones. She has a huge, wide range and is able to do so many styles well. She'll do stuff I wouldn't do - vocalese like Manhattan Transfer or hard rock."
This past summer Richardson and her daughter performed at the Elora Festival backed by keyboard player Doug Riley and his son, Ben, on drums. "Working with Kim is the best working situation for me," Richardson says. She's also on Kim's new CD, Kaleidoscope, singing Deep Down Inside, from Joe Sealy's Africville Suite. Kaleidoscope is a bilingual recording - Kim lives in Montreal - of pop, rock and blues.
With Jackie, who lives in Richmond Hill, Ont., rarely performing in Toronto these days, her fans will likely be out in full force at the WBR. Torontonians will also get another chance see her at a Christmas concert at the Diesel Playhouse in December. In 2007, she tours across Canada with Decidedly Danceworks, in which she scats and sings the blues while dancers interpret the music. The show hits the Markham Theatre in April 2007.
How does Richardson keep going in spite of a challenging performing schedule? "I take vitamins and try to get my sleep. It's the love of it that keeps me going," she says
- Ruth Schweitzer