Music & Concerts
A conversation with Vanessa Williams
Actress/singer in D.C. for Howard Theatre double-header
Vanessa Williams has dabbled in so many fields, she says she’s always intrigued to find out where fans recognize her from. (Photo courtesy the Howard Theatre)
Vanessa Williams
DJ Baronhawk opens
Friday, March 10
7:30 and 10 p.m.
620 T St., N.W.
$60-95
Star of stage and screen Vanessa Williams makes her Howard Theatre debut performing two shows Friday evening (March 10).
Williams, whose career spans 30-plus years, is known for her roles in the TV series “Ugly Betty” and “Desperate Housewives” along with motion pictures such as “Soul Food” and “Eraser.” Along with her film credits, she has appeared in many Broadway shows and released six solo albums spanning a multitude of hits.
Vanessa has just wrapped up a new series on VH1 entitled “Daytime Divas” and is hitting the road this month for a handful of concert dates.
During a phone interview Monday while in Minneapolis promoting her spring clothing line for Evine, Williams talks about performing, still being starstruck and her signature song, “Save The Best For Last.”
WASHINGTON BLADE: Friday brings you to the Howard Theatre for two shows. Are you looking forward to your first time at the historic venue?
VANESSA WILLIAMS: I’ve been doing dates for a long, long time and it’s always great to do different venues. Every room has a different feel. That’s why live and theater is so exciting because the audiences are kind of informed and I switch up the set on how I feel the audience is leaning. I may do some more R&B if the audience is more of an urban crowd. I might do more Broadway or standards if it’s a benefit or a gala. It’s always curious to see who ends up showing up and tailoring the show to what I feel is going to be their likes.
BLADE: Do you prefer theaters to clubs or outdoor arenas?
WILLIAMS: You know, each venue is a unique experience. My first experience on tour was in 1997 with Luther Vandross and we did arenas. It’s a huge operation and everyone has their tour buses and we’re all pow-wowing before the shows and in-between shows, eating and exercising together. It was a like a little village camping out every time we set up in a different city. That was really wonderful and I have so many great memories of that. I love doing outdoor venues. It’s the summer time and smelling the barbecue off in the distance. It’s hot and balmy but people are in their picnic chairs ready to enjoy the day. That’s a whole different kind of thing. The breeze is blowing through your hair and it’s a lot more casual and relaxed. Then there’s the concert venues where I do symphony dates and I have a full orchestra behind me and feel very professional and classy. It’s also another opportunity to do a different set and do some Broadway stuff with the full orchestra. A theater allows me to kind of interact with the audience in a very intimate way so they can hear the hits, they’re not blasted away by the huge speakers and they can sing along and have a personal experience.
BLADE: One of the last times you were in D.C., you performed for Diana Ross at the Kennedy Center Honors. How did that come about?
WILLIAMS: I’ve done two Kennedy Center tributes. One for Tony Bennett and I did “The Best Is Yet To Come,” which was amazing, then I got the call to do Diana Ross and sang “Touch Me In the Morning.” Hanging out with her afterward at her table with her kids, she asked me if I wanted to buy her house in Greenwich and I was like, “It’s OK I got my own house about 20 minutes away, I’m cool” (laughs). I worked with her on Motown Returns to the Apollo in ’85 and I was playing Josephine Baker and sang “La Vie en Rose” and I think she played Billie Holiday. She was definitely there and that was the first time I met her.
BLADE: Do you still get Starstruck?
WILLIAMS: Oh yeah! There’s plenty of people that are legendary that walk into a room and truly have a presence and take all the air out of the room. I remember the first time I was at acting class out in L.A. studying with Donna Strasberg and one of her dear friends was Sophia Loren and I just couldn’t breathe. She was not only stunning, but she’s one of those movie icons. I saw her couple years later and age for her I guess stopped years ago, because again — she’s stunning and so elegant and has such a presence. That was the same thing I felt when I first met Lena Horne and I could barely speak and she goes “It’s OK honey, it’s OK.” (laughs). I definitely still get starstruck.
BLADE: Do you feel your music career is sometimes overshadowed by your acting career?
WILLIAMS: No. I think there’s a time and season for everything. Particularly when I first started recording, I was 25 years old, had one child and we’re talking 30-odd years later and I’m still in the game. Whatever presents itself to me at the time, I’m up for the challenge. I just finished doing a series for VH1 and it’s kind of coincidental because I started out in my recording career hosting a show for VH1 called “The Soul Of VH1.” Twenty years later I’m back on the network playing a character in a series so it’s nice to be able to do so many different things and have options. I’ve always been able to come back to my music, Broadway, television and find a home in a show that seems to be perfect.
BLADE: You’ve done pretty much everything in your career. How does it feel to have different generations recognize you for different things? Some know you as Miss. America, others as Wilhelmina Slater (from “Ugly Betty”) — how does it feel to have such a broad fan base and continually gain new fans?
WILLIAMS: It always surprises me who recognizes me when I’m walking through an airport or outside walking down the street because being 53 years old, I assume people my age know me, but I got a whole set of young folk that know me from “Ugly Betty.” I go across the world and I was in South Africa and people recognized me for being a desperate housewife and in Australia they know my music. It’s unbelievable! “Elmo In Grouchland” for the young kids growing up knowing me as “The Queen of Trash.” I’m always curious to find out where they know me.
BLADE: Why do you think gay men are attracted to you?
WILLIAMS: Both my parents were music teachers and my mom had many gay friends. Some were teachers, hair stylists and lawyers. My father was completely open and generous and had no issues at all so I came from a family that was completely tolerant and exposed. When I started doing musical theater in high school and college, many of my friends were gay. They helped me choose music and amplified my diva ability to be a chanteuse and be a bigger sex symbol than I probable felt natural to be, but they highlighted it. I’ve always been surrounded by the gay community so there was no real transition for me. I remember my first grown-up gift was a bottle of Opium Perfume which I thought was so, so, so grown up! (laughs). It was from one of my parents’ friends who was a lawyer and drove a gorgeous Porsche and he had a beautiful apartment with padded silk walls and there was a sense of style and elegance that he represented. That was the first time I equated style and panache and femininity with a gay man.
BLADE: Your last album, “The Real Thing,” came out in 2009. Any plans for new music?
WILLIAMS: I would love to have new music come out. I think the past two or three labels I was talking to and in negotiations with, they fell apart. My genre is kind of disappearing. From going R&B to pop to I guess you could call it adult contemporary to smooth jazz is kind of dried up. There’s not many stations that play what’s normally been my lane for the past 10 or so years. It’s difficult to find a place in terms of a new label. The recording industry is completely changing so a lot of people are self-producing and self-distributing so I haven’t quiet figured out what my next move is, but I do have a lot of ideas and I’m definitely open to recording more music. I’d love to actually work with my daughter (Jillian Hervey) who’s a recording artist and doing incredibly well. To do one song with her would be great. The name of her band is Lion Babe and she’s killing it.
BLADE: Does she ever come to you for advice or you give her advice from your experiences?
WILLIAMS: Well you know, my kids are lucky because they’ve been behind the scenes of every genre. They’ve been in my dressing room when I was on the Broadway stage, on tour with me, in my trailer whether it’s television or movie sets. They understand how hard the work is, they understand the commitment, being professional, showing up on time and knowing your stuff. Jillian kind of got her sea legs — not sea legs, but her vocal chops/recording legs when she graduated from college and was looking forward to being a professional dancer. I had some dates in Japan and she said, “I wanna go,” and I said if you wanna go, you have to sing and she learned everything on the plane and learned the in-ear monitors and how to work the mic, do multiple shows a night and take care of her voice, so she started being on the road with me right after college and that was an easy transition.
BLADE: Are you surprised 25 years later that “Save The Best For Last” has becoming your signature song?
WILLIAMS: No. When I recorded it, I knew it was a great song, I knew that it would do. I had no idea it would do as well as it did. I guess those are the best surprises in life when you enjoy it, having a good time and it explodes and you’re not expecting it. That’s when it’s really sweet. It still holds up. When I sing it, people sing along and it’s like karaoke time. It’s great to have one of those signature songs as part of my repertoire.
BLADE: Do you feel there’s anything left to conquer?
WILLIAMS: Hmm … (pauses) … actually, I’m going to be directing season two of “Daytime Divas” for VH1 which is going to be exciting, so that will be my next step. The show’s airing later on this spring and I’m starring in it. It’s about a day time talk show called “The Lunch Hour” and I’m the producer and star of the show. It’s great to be back on television.
BLADE: What are you most proud of?
WILLIAMS: My kids. Ask any mother (laughs). I look at them and it’s great to see what you hope and dream for them all come to fruition. They’re all doing their own unique thing, they’re all very creative and I’m glad I could bring them into the world.
Music & Concerts
Underdog glorious: a personal remembrance of Jill Sobule
Talented singer, songwriter died in house fire on May 1
I’ve always prided myself on being the kind of music consumer who purchased music on impulse. When I stumbled across “Things Here Are Different,” Jill Sobule’s 1990 MCA Records debut album on vinyl in a favorite Chicago record store, I bought it without knowing anything about her. This was at a time when we didn’t have our phones in our pockets to search for information about the artist on the internet. The LP stayed in my collection until, as vinyl was falling out of fashion, I replaced it with a CD a few years later.
Early in my career as an entertainment journalist, I received a promo copy of Jill’s eponymous 1995 Atlantic Records album. That year, Atlantic Records was one of the labels at the forefront of signing and heavily promoting queer artists, including Melissa Ferrick and Extra Fancy, and its roster included the self-titled album by Jill. It was a smart move, as the single “I Kissed A Girl” became a hit on radio and its accompanying video (featuring Fabio!) was in heavy rotation on MTV (when they still played videos).
Unfortunately for Jill, she was a victim of record label missteps. When 1997’s wonderful “Happy Town” failed to repeat the success, Atlantic dumped her. That was Atlantic’s loss, because her next album, the superb “Pink Pearl” contained “Heroes” and “Mexican Wrestler,” two of her most beloved songs. Sadly, Beyond Music, the label that released that album ceased to exist after just a few years. To her credit, the savvy Jill had also started independently releasing music (2004’s “The Folk Years”). That was a smart move because her next major-label release, the brilliant “Underdog Victorious” on Artemis Records, met a similar fate when that label folded.
With her 2009 album “California Years,” Jill launched her own indie label, Pinko Records, on which she would release two more outstanding full-length discs, 2014’s “Dottie’s Charms” (on which she collaborated with some of her favorite writers, including David Hadju, Rick Moody, Mary Jo Salter, and Jonathan Lethem), and 2018’s stunning “Nostalgia Kills.” Jill’s cover of the late Warren Zevon’s “Don’t Let Us Get Sick” on “Nostalgia Kills” was particularly poignant as she had toured with him as an opening act.
Jill was a road warrior, constantly on tour, and her live shows were something to behold. My first interview with Jill took place at the Double Door in Chicago in early August of 1995, when she was the opening act for legendary punk band X. She had thrown her back out the previous day and was diagnosed with a herniated disc. To be comfortable, she was lying down on a fabulous-‘50s sofa. “I feel like I’m at my shrink’s,” she said to me, “Do you want me to talk about my mother?”
That sense of humor, which permeated and enriched her music, was one of many reasons to love Jill. I was privileged to interview her for seven of her albums. Everything you would want to know about her was right there in her honest lyrics, in which she balanced her distinctive brand of humor with serious subject matter. Drawing on her life experiences in songs such as “Bitter,” “Underachiever,” “One of These Days,” “Freshman,” “Jetpack,” “Nothing To Prove,” “Forbidden Thoughts of Youth,” “Island of Lost Things,” “Where Do I Begin,” “Almost Great,” and “Big Shoes,” made her songs as personal as they were universal, elicited genuine affection and concern from her devoted fans.
While she was a consummate songwriter, Jill also felt equally comfortable covering songs made famous by others, including “Just A Little Lovin’” (on the 2000 Dusty Springfield tribute album “Forever Dusty”) and “Stoned Soul Picnic” (from the 1997 Laura Nyro tribute album “Time and Love”). Jill also didn’t shy away from political subject matter in her music with “Resistance Song,” “Soldiers of Christ,” “Attic,” “Heroes,” “Under the Disco Ball,” and the incredible “America Back” as prime examples.
Here’s something else worth mentioning about Jill. She was known for collaboration skills. As a songwriter, she maintained a multi-year creative partnership with Robin Eaton (“I Kissed A Girl” and many others), as well as Richard Barone, the gay frontman of the renowned band The Bongos. Jill’s history with Barone includes performing together at a queer Octoberfest event in Chicago in 1996. Writer and comedian Julie Sweeney, of “SNL” and “Work in Progress” fame was another Chicago collaborator with Sobule (Sweeney lives in a Chicago suburb), where they frequently performed their delightful “The Jill and Julia Show.” John Doe, of the aforementioned band X, also collaborated with Jill in the studio (“Tomorrow Is Breaking” from “Nostalgia Kills”), as well as in live performances.
On a very personal note, in 2019, when I was in the process of arranging a reading at the fabulous NYC gay bookstore Bureau of General Services – Queer Division, I reached out to Jill and asked her if she would like to be on the bill with me. We alternated performing; I would read a couple of poems, and Jill would sing a couple of songs. She even set one of my poems to music, on the spot.
Jill had an abundance of talent, and when she turned her attention to musical theater, it paid off in a big way. Her stage musical “F*ck 7th Grade,” a theatrical piece that seemed like the next logical step in her career, had its premiere at Pittsburgh’s City Theatre in the fall of 2020, during the height of the pandemic. The unique staging (an outdoor drive-in stage at which audience members watched from their cars) was truly inspired. “F*ck 7th Grade” went on to become a New York Times Critic’s pick, as well as earning a Drama Desk nomination.
In honor of the 30th anniversary of Jill’s eponymous 1995 album, reissue label Rhino Records is re-releasing it on red vinyl. Jill and I had been emailing each other to arrange a time for an interview. We even had a date on the books for the third week of May.
When she died in a house fire in Minnesota on May 1 at age 66, Jill received mentions on network and cable news shows. She was showered with attention from major news outlets, including obits in the New York Times and Rolling Stone (but not Pitchfork, who couldn’t be bothered to review her music when she was alive). Is it wrong to think that if she’d gotten this much attention when she was alive she could have been as big as Taylor Swift? I don’t think so.
Music & Concerts
Tom Goss returns with ‘Bear Friends Furever Tour’
Out singer/songwriter to perform at Red Bear Brewing Co.
Singer Tom Goss will bring his “Bear Friends Furever Tour” to D.C. on Sunday, June 8 at 8 p.m. at Red Bear Brewing Co.
Among the songs he will perform will be “Bear Soup,” the fourth installment in his beloved bear song anthology series. Following fan favorites like “Bears,” “Round in All the Right Places,” and “Nerdy Bear,” this high-energy, bass-thumping banger celebrates body positivity, joyful indulgence, and the vibrant spirit of the bear subculture.
For more details, visit Tom Goss’s website.
Aussie pop icon Kylie Minogue brings her acclaimed “Tension” world tour to D.C. next Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Capital One Arena. Tickets are still available at Ticketmaster.
The show features songs spanning her long career, from 1987 debut single, “The Loco-Motion,” to “Padam, Padam” from her album, “Tension.”
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