Today's NY Daily News:
https://www.nydailynews.com/snyde/ny...dby-story.html
Today's NY Daily News:
https://www.nydailynews.com/snyde/ny...dby-story.html
Great article about Freda Payne; I'm glad to hear that she's still performing [and the details about her book Band Of Gold]. Thanks PNH for sharing!
Any chance that the article can be copied please. This is what I get: Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
‘Band of Gold’ singer Freda Payne on returning to her jazz roots, dishing dirt about her past love life in juicy new memoir
By KARU F. DANIELS
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
NOV 21, 2021 AT 10:32 AM
There’s much more to Freda Payne than meets the ear.
Although she gained international fame with the 1970 hit “Band of Gold,” the chanteuse is making new waves in the jazz genre — returning to her 1960s roots.
Freda Payne performs during The Friends of Jazz at UCLA honors Herbie Hancock in recognition of International Jazz Day at Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center on April 30, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. [[Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
The Detroit-born diva recently released the album, “Let There Be Love,” featuring collaborations with R&B balladeer Kenny Lattimore, jazz vocalist Kurt Elling, pop singer Johnny Mathis and vocal powerhouse Dee Dee Bridgewater.
Payne is scheduled to perform selections from the opus, and much more, when she makes her debut at New York City’s Birdland Jazz Club on Nov. 22.
“It’s a relief because … people expected me to be a soul singer and booked me on R&B shows and tours but now I can be happy because now I can sing the kind of music that I feel most comfortable with,” the 79-year-old singer and actress told the Daily News. “I can do it all.”
A deep dive into her catalog will confirm that: she’s performed renditions of classic pop standards such as “‘Round Midnight” and “I Cried for You” in 1964 as well as spunky interpretations of blues classics “See See Rider” and “Nobody Wants You When You’re Down and Out” in 1971. Sprinkled throughout her body of musical work are soulful versions of Barbra Streisand’s timeless classic “The Way We Were” and Leon Russell’s “A Song for You,” alongside songs popularized by the Beatles, Nina Simone and the Righteous Brothers.
Accompanied by Frank Owens and a three-piece trio, the Grammy-nominated song stylist is looking forward to hitting the stage for the first time at Birdland, a place she was very fond of during her years living in New York City during the 1960s.
“I used to go to the old Birdland when it was on Broadway in the ‘50s,” she recalled. “I used to go there a lot. I’ve never performed at this one.”
Freda Payne on "The View." [[LOU ROCCO/ABC)
Payne, who started her professional singing career in big bands and performing with Duke Ellington, knows that even with bellowing out tunes composed by the likes of the Gershwins, Cole Porter, and songs popularized by Nat King Cole and Billie Holliday under her belt, she won’t be able leave the stage without singing “Band of Gold.”
“I do,” she chuckled when asked if she ever gets tired singing the Holland-Dozier-Holland classic.
“But you know what? I’m so grateful that that song has really kind of helped bring me this far,” she added about her signature song. “Because no matter what I do ... people know who I am because of “Band of Gold.”
In 2004, the song was ranked No. 391 among Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Jim Caruso, who hosts Birdland’s “Cast Party” and produces the “Broadway at Birdland” series, is a longtime fan of the songstress, who trod the boards of the Great White Way in productions starring showbiz greats Leslie Uggams [[1967′s “Hallelujah, Baby!”) and Sammy Davis Jr. [[1974′s “Sammy”).
“I dare anyone to sit still while listening to Freda Payne’s ‘Band of Gold.’ Her iconic voice and that magical song are etched in our hearts and minds and have become part of music history,” Caruso told The News.
Payne recently performed the chart-topping hit — covered in the 1980s by cross-dressing disco icon Sylvester, pop stars Belinda Carlisle and Bonnie Tyler, and in the mid-’00s by “American Idol” standout Kimberley Locke” —
during Whoopi Goldberg’s 66th birthday celebration on “The View.”
Freda Payne is seen in 2005. [[Frederick M. Brown)
A week before, Payne released a juicy memoir — titled “Band of Gold” —detailing her life story, which leaves very little to the imagination when it comes to former romances with producer Quincy Jones, Motown songwriter Eddie Holland, U.S. Sen. John Tunney and chart-topping singers Edmund Sylvers and Gregory Abbott.
The Rhythm and Blues Music hall of famer has no regrets about revealing so much; in some relationships [[notably with Jones and Tunney), she played the part of the other woman in extramarital affairs. She said she didn’t feel like a homewrecker.
Of her motivation to offer up so many intimate details of her life at such a ripe age, Payne said she couldn’t think of no better time than now.
“Because I was 79, OK?” she deadpanned. “And I realized that a lot of my peers, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, Candi Staton, Bettye LaVette, and Darlene Love, you name them, I can go on and on, have done their memoirs. And I said, ‘Wait a minute, all these friends of mine and people that I know have written their memoirs, and I haven’t written mine?’’”
“And I said, ‘I better hurry up and write this damn book before my memory goes.’”
Karu F. Daniels
New York Daily News
CONTACT
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Karu F. Daniels has written for the Daily News since 2014. His work has also been featured in the Associated Press, The New York Times, CNN, ABC News, Billboard, NBC News, The Daily Beast, Playbill and Word Up magazine, among other outlets.
Photos with article
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Thank you for posting Joseph. :-)
She's still very pretty even at 79.
Thanks to sophisticatedsoul for sharing the Lovely photos of Freda Payne!
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