| JAZZ/CLASSICAL |
In Conversation With Rachelle Ferrell
By Avonie BROWN |
Courtesy photo - Rachelle Ferrell |
| One of the fundamentals of journalism is the requirement that the journalist maintains an objective distance from the story. When it comes to the music of Rachelle Ferrell I am extremely subjective and very involved in the story because I L-O-V-E everything she sings. The connection began with her self-titled debut release in 1992 and nine years later the textures and contours of her six-octave vocal range is still awe-inspiring. In 1995 she released First Instrument and after an eight-year absence from the recording studio, she has gifted us with Individuality (Can I Be Me?). Ferrell's long overdue release is testimony to her strength as a woman and an artist. She said that she made the decision not to record because she was fighting for her creative autonomy. Fans may not have truly noticed because Ferrell maintained a steady touring schedule. She returns to the metro area for a one-week engagement at Blues Alley through April 1. If you hoped to catch her live you are out of luck because all shows are now sold out and that's not surprising. While each recording is a timeless tribute to true musical artistry Ferrell's live performances resonate long after the last note is sung. With each performance you truly get to experience her mastery over her vocal instrument. And after spending more than an hour in conversation with her I have come away with some understanding about her creative process. Ferrell is able to imbue her performance with so much power and intensity because it comes from a deeply spiritual and authentic place. But more importantly, I came away from our conversation with a deeper respect for the woman and the woman as an artist. |
| Avonie |
Do you realize that it was only in preparing to speak to you that I
became conscious that you only have three albums? |
| Rachelle |
That's it. |
| Avonie | But given your popularity around these parts you wouldn't know it. In
the last several months you've been here what three-four-five times to perform? |
| Rachelle | I've been here a lot but DC is my home now...my home folk. I love
performing here. |
| Avonie | How do you experience the material each time you sing it? |
| Rachelle | Each time I do I experience it as my personal truth. Whether it is
a piece of material that I have written or not, I can't do it if I haven't
experienced it as a personal truth of mine. Its gotta be something that I
know to be true for myself or I know I wanna say to someone or say to my
audience family. I have to deeply connected with it at a real core level in
order for me to sing it because unless I do it from that place it is not
authentic. |
| Avonie | Are you able to draw on that each time? |
| Rachelle | Absolutely! Because it so real there is an ever present well from
which to draw. Its not something that I have to conjure or make up or put on
like a sheet or piece of clothing, it's a real experience, its a real emotion
and a very real sentiment so I can immediately go to that place, that well
that is the source and just dip in there and each time it renews me and
whoever I'm sharing with. |
| Avonie | So you don't have any reservations, especially with an album like
Individuality (Can I Be Me?) which seems so deeply personal? Is there ever
any fear when you present materials like this that you will reveal too much
of you? Are you ever guarded in the creation process or in performance? |
| Rachelle | No, No, No. Not at all. It doesn't really matter what you reveal or
how much you reveal of yourself, people are gonna make up stuff anyway so I
just do my little thing over here. They will always come up with their own
opinions, their own perceptions, some of which may be derivatives of what
already out there and much of it has nothing to do with what is truth. In
that respect there is no fear because it really has nothing at all to do with
me, who I am, my artistry and how the two kinda meld and mesh together. It's important for me to be true to myself and true to my artistry. The best
that I can do is to offer my highest and that requires whatever it requires.
I mean I don't look at the music or approach the music or writing or
performing from the outside in that way, in terms of looking at consequence
first, that's pretty much a waste of time for me, it all stems from the
center from inside first. As within so without. So what everybody is seeing
or experiencing is a result of that process of being inside first. That's one
thing I can say, that with regard to myself people can always count on that. |
| Avonie | What you're outlining is a very spiritually centered approach that is
the antithesis of the business, so to speak. |
| Rachelle | Absolutely! That's why you don't hear this on the radio that much,
why you don't see and hear too much about it because it is very subversive
and its very counterculture right now. It actually a very dangerous concept to a lot of people and to I think
society in general, particularly mainstream society and mainstream music i
ndustry. It is extremely subversive. Where can you look now in society and
see encouragement and support for individuality, for people to be who they
are? I can't think of anyplace where I can turn to for that kind of support.
Certainly not video, not television, the newspaper, not even church. |
| Avonie | No because church as it is now popularly practiced requires control
and conformity to the group ideals in the utmost even though your experience
with your higher power must an individual and deeply personal one. |
| Rachelle | So you can see then how this material can be very subversive and
potentially very dangerous to those who are involved in religions of
conformity? |
| Avonie | To maintain this perspective Rachelle must take some real personal
strength because you are in a business that requires pigeonholing, requires
that you "imitate" that last successful style, performer or music and fall in
line with a pre-programmed approached. What led you to this place? |
| Rachelle | Everything I've ever experience. As we learn and grow and develop,
we begin to connect the dots and put things together and come into certain
awareness and it is my deepest knowing that that's why I'm here, to be of
service in this way. It's not about being a star, being a celebrity or being
famous or making gazillions of dollars. I could have opted for all of those
things because I had the tools to be able to attain those particular goals
and I'm very well aware of that. I could have made billions of dollars in the
last 10 years but my choices are different because my values are different. |
| Avonie | I think ultimately the industry will have to step in line because
regardless of this very defiant stance you remain EXTREMELY popular so there
is clearly and audience that wants and needs this. |
| Rachelle | And that's why I'm still here. Because if it were for the music
industry, I would not be here. So that's why my fans are my family. We have a
much deeper connection than artist-fan or artist-audience. |
| Avonie | And you push the envelope even further because you have not only
shared your spiritual energy in your material, it is by definition also
explicitly Afrocentric. |
| Rachelle | All that you see, all that you experience is simply who I am. |
| Avonie | I love your style though, so on a woman-to-woman tip, who does your
style? |
| Rachelle | Well, it's a combination of folks that are very intuitive, very
open to me, very perceptive. They understand who I am as an individual and
respect that so they didn't try to make me over as other folks tried to do
when I first got started. IT's a result of my growth and development. Gina Rene Williams of Kinky Creations in Philadelphia does my hair. She is a
master at doing natural hair so I call her "Queen Gina" and she calls me
"Queen Shelly." Cecile Parker in Los Angeles is gifted in terms of picking
out clothes, no matter what the occasion she has a deeply intuitive sense
about what works and she can really hone it for the individual. Like for this
album and promotional pictures I didn't even go with her. She went shopping
for me and I was like `Yeah!' That's how bad she is. Finally the person who
does my make-up is Ruddy Talbo (sp). We were in an antique African shop in
New Mexico and I showed him the book "Africa Adorned" and I explained to him
what I was looking for. He looked at a picture of these brothers in the
Wadabe(sp) tribe of Eastern African. They have this ritual where they make
themselves up to be the most beautiful they can be to try to attract the
sisters. |
| Avonie | That's a role reversal! |
| Rachelle | I thought that was really interest so that's why I got with that --
flip the script for a minute. |
| Avonie | It's about time! |
| Rachelle | You know what I mean. African is full of many things like that that
are outside what we know to be the norm. We get so grounded in what we think
we know and while it fine for this culture but its not the only way of
thinking and being. |
| Avonie | That's truly something that we as black people need to recognition.
We just occupy a small portion of the world here...the diversity in the c
ultures of black people is vast and has so much to offer us. And really all
we need to do is just step outside our box and look around and truly interact
with each other, because right here in DC you have black people like myself
who come with differing cultural experiences. |
| Rachelle | And while before we were forcibly boxed in, without any choice,
power ability or resources, now we are just boxed in because we just don't
know any better. We have access to the internet, we have much higher incomes,
so much more is available to us today. |
| Avonie | Speaking of the internet, I hear you are very hands on with your
website. So are you also a "techie" and why did you choose that additional
medium to communicate with your audience? |
| Rachelle | No I'm not a techie I just think its a wonderful medium to give my
family access to not only myself but to each other, to ideas, information and
energy about a lot of different things. It started out mainly with the music
and the particular lifestyle that I live. So many people write in because
they are interested in knowing what I'm reading because they can see the
tremendous growth that has occurred over the last eight years. They wanna
know how to start to be a vegetarian, they wanna know what I do under certain
circumstances and conditions, they wanna how do I stay up. |
| Avonie | What kind of numbers are you getting on your site are you able to
respond to everybody? |
| Rachelle | Girl, I get tons of email and I'm already about five months behind. |
| Avonie | I bet. |
| Rachelle | I ain't gonna lie...I had no idea so much was gonna come in. In
addition to that I have a talkboard called "People's Review" where people can
post information, ideas, what have you and my brother and I respond to it to
let folks know we are there its actually us. Once it gets completed, I know
the maintenance will be less time consuming right now it's a process of
constantly playing check up because we are trying to work on the design and
the content. But I had no idea it would take off like this, we've actually n
ot even given the official grand opening announcement yet. People must have
gotten the information from the CD, surfing or word of mouth because they
have certainly found us. Last month alone we had over 50,000 hits. |
| Avonie | I understand completely what you're going through because we are
going through some similar growing pains around here with the launch of the
online edition of the paper. While it allows us to communicate directly to
another group of readers directly, that may not get the print edition, it
adds a whole new layer of work that I didn't realistically plan for. But even
with the additional work it is exciting how interactive it is and you can get
instant feedback. It's a phenomenal experience isn't it? |
| Rachelle | I love it. My brother (Russ Barnes) is more of the techie. He
learned HTML and all that. He has that kind of mind to get in there and do
all that. |
| Avonie | To switch bad to music for a moment...not that we need to because
your week at Blues Alley is already sold out I was told. But isn't it a
stretch to go from the vast space of Constitution Hall to a small venue like
Blues Alley? |
| Rachelle | I hadn't really thought of that but you are right. Originally I was
slated to perform at the Warner Theater but when my girls Maysa and Kim
Waters where added to the ticket we needed a bigger space so we moved to
Constitution Hall. |
| Avonie | I absolutely loved your show at Constitution Hall, but it is not my
favorite venue for performances. |
| Rachelle | It was a nice evening at Constitution Hall though because my
engineer is just really gifted and we got a lot of comments and compliments
saying they had never heard the sound that good. If anybody could do it Terry
Jackson was the one. |
| Avonie | What will be the team like for Blues Alley? Same group or scaled down? |
| Rachelle | Same group, my same folk, engineers everything. |
| Avonie | How do you pare down? |
| Rachelle | I don't. I guess from being in the audience, the landscape and the
parameters are a bit different and based upon that it might be a little more
intense. Instead of being up front and having to look up constantly like at
Constitution Hall, at Blues Alley you'll probably get spit
on...(laughter)...I guess that's what they call a little more intimate. Terry
is very sensitive to the dimensions of a venue and what the audience hears.
There is nothing worst than being accosted by music. When the music's too
loud I can't think and I can't respond. |
| Avonie | What about your band don't they feel constrained when they can't
unleash in such a small room? |
| Rachelle | No, my band is also very sensitive to the process as well and you
can tell the difference between a band that accompanies a vocalist and one
that doesn't do it very well. There are a lot of great instrumentalists out
there but there is a certain skill and gift a certain level of listening that
has to occur to really accompany a vocalist well. So the dynamics and the
quality of the sound will be just as intense at Blues Alley as it was at
Constitution Hall. |
| Avonie | What do you do to your voice now? Is it seasoned or do you have to
treat it delicately in preparation for performance? |
| Rachelle | I don't think I treat it delicately but if treating it delicately
means not screaming then I guess I do. I follow the philosophy that my body
is my instrument so whatever I do to my body I'm doing to my instrument. I
can't put it in a case and set it in the corner until the next gig. Its a
whole lifestyle. I can't smoke cigarettes and try to sing. But if you're a
vocalist that has to have the same power, strength and endurance of an
athlete, there are certain things you must do. I approach thing more along
the lines of how a classical singer would treat their instrument as oppose to
schlepping from gig to gig, smoking and screaming and drinking Jack Daniels.
I couldn't live like that and still maintain my schedule and be able to put
out 150-200% everytime. For me its a wholistic approach, I don't' have to
think about it because it is incorporated into my whole lifestyle. That way
when I open my mouth I have access to the gift. |
| Avonie | This is intrinsically apart of who you are. That takes a lot of
discipline because most of us don't pay attention to the body temple that way
even though we may intellectually know that that should be out primary focus. |
| Rachelle | We have fallen into habits and mental conditioning that don't
support our health. But wholistic living is my commitment to myself and to my
artistry but we all can make that commitment to ourselves because we are all
worthy. I'm here to be of service so if sharing my life helps to make a
difference in someone else's life that's as it should be. |
| Avonie | We are definitely blessed for it and we appreciate your artistry and
we certainly appreciate you. |
| Rachelle | I certainly appreciate you all because it is definitely a two-way
road, definitely reciprocity there. I can't even begin to explain the depth
of the connection between my self and my audience and what they give to me is
huge and all encompassing. The best way I can try to explain it is to try and
reflect it back in my music, in my self, in my life and what I offer. Because
it is a huge gift that my family gives and I'm not even sure if they are
aware of it. They think I'm the one doing all the giving but that really is
not the case. It really pretty amazing and it humbles me very deeply. |
| To connect with Rachelle you can join her web community at
www.rachelleferrell.com. |
