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Photos by Joseph Beam
An interview with Linda Tillery
"I would like to be able to see a night when I go on stage and see the audience filled with Black Lesbian and Gay faces. That would be the ultimate get-off in my life--to see a crowd of Black Lesbians and Black Gay men supporting me. Supporting ourselves! Because we do sometimes live between two countries."
By Joseph Beam
The San Francisco Herald Examiner, in a review of Joplin and Tillery, said: "Two girl singers almost lifted the Fillmore Auditorium off its foundation last night. Janis Joplin, responding to a "welcome home" cheer from the jammed rock concert hall, wailed and moaned and turned on the crowd. Linda Tillery, a big, bright, nineteen-year-old from San Francisco's Fillmore district, took over on the next set--along with "The Loading Zone Octet"--and practically blew out the fuses."
The Loading Zone disbanded in 1973 after suffering the perils of interacting with the big record companies. But, undaunted by her initial contact with the recording industry. Tillery recorded two albums with Coke Escovedo and then produced her own album, "Linda Tillery," in 1978 on Olivia Records.
Later that year Tillery, along with Mary Watkins, Vicki Randle, Pat Parker and Gwen Avery, toured the country in "The Varied Voices of Black Women." A celebration of Black women's lives employing music and poetry.
I think the "Varied Voices" tour was the first time that a group of us were able to go and present ourselves as we truly are--four Black women, doing what we do, having people listen to it, and try to understand what that's about.
In other words, it wasn't dressed up or candy-coated. We weren't trying to "crossover." Pat Parker wasn't reciting Dylan Thomas or May Sarton; she was being Pat Parker, a Black woman poet.
What I said, and have felt for a real long time is, the women's community does not support non-White women's music: financially, emotionally, or in terms of concerts.
If you compare the record sales of "The Changer and the Changed," Cris Wiliiamson's best selling record to date, to the total of sales of my album, Mary Watkins', those of Sweet Honey in the Rock, and throw in Teresa Trull's, they would still not equal the sales of "Changer and the Changed."
But, that's not Olivia's fault! They are responding to a demand from an audience that they feel accountable and responsible to. That, to me, is business. I can't force the women's community to like Rhythm and Blues or non-folk oriented music. But, at the same time I want to know why they don't support it, when I get feedback that they love me and love my music.
You move down the scale and there are a few Black stars who have been able to touch on that. And when you get into Jazz and Rhythm & Blues, we make a lot less money as a creative community and have smaller attendance.
I'm not angry with Meg, Cris, Holly [Near], or Margie for existing, nor am I questioning their validity as performers. All I'm saying is that I hope soon the women's community will open its ears. There are other kinds of music than a woman with a guitar and a woman at a piano.
But survival is important, and I've learned that. I'm not going to annihilate myself when I get in those periods when I can't make enough money from my music. I still want to stay alive until the next time comes around.
But a lot of people have gone that way--Charlie Parker, for example--out of frustration, an ultimate, consummate genius. But Parker probably never made a third of the money Barry Manilow makes.
creative vocal genius of the twentieth century, as far as I'm concerned,
Photo by Joseph Beam
An interview with Linda Tillery
"I would not want to go out on the road and become the female version of Prince, or the Black equivalent of Pat Benatar, or start wearing spandex pedal-pushers and 'come fuck me' pumps. That's not really what it's all about."
By Joseph Beam
Whose records do you listen to?
I listen to Bobby McFerrin a lot. He's only released one album. Bobby is "the" creative vocal genius of the twentieth century, as far as I'm concerned, yet very few people know that this man exists, and that's so bizarre.
I have, I think, every album Aretha Franklin has ever made. I still listen to Johnny Mathis, Nancy Wilson, Ella, Dinah Washington, Donny Hathaway, and James Taylor.
What I'm about is the preservation of the real tradition of Rhythm and Blues. Although the concept of commercial Black music has changed in the last fifteen years, there was a lot of spontaneity going on in the music those days.
Now, it's more "Pavlovian" because its programmed. You know exactly what part the singer is going to break the song down and work the crowd into a frenzy, instead of allowing it to happen naturally.
The older R&B is very passionate, gut level stuff. The lyrics were written a lot about pain, suffering, and struggle. I get my political values from that music. I heard a lot of political messages in songs from those days, from people like Ray Charles.
Will there be political songs on your new album?
Yes. I think nowadays people think that if you don't write a song that is blatantly political, with a sledgehammer lyric, then it's somehow not political. But there's a lot of political content in many songs written throughout the forties, fifties and sixties.
A song like "Strange Fruit," for example, that's a political song. "Jesus Children of America" is a political song and, by combining it with "The World is a Ghetto," I'm making a strong political statement. I don't think there's any way a person could miss the point of what I'm trying to say.
Are you going to produce your new record?
No, I don't think I'm going to that again. I'm going to have my longtime friend Ray Orbiedo produce the new album.
What are the responsibilities of a producer?
The producer's role changes from project to project. A producer decides what the tempo in the grooves is going to be like and what inversion you play on a certain chord. If it's too hip, you don't want to put it on a dance tune.
A producer decides if the music should be more accessible or if it should be more complicated in a certain spot, and arranges that sort of stuff. Chooses musicians, length of tunes. It's like being a football coach. Get everybody together, map out the plays, tell 'em where to go, and blow the whistle.
Why would you not produce this time?
Because it's too hard to be objective. I can do it for someone else's project, but I think the producer needs to stay on the other side of the glass. Objectivity is the most important role of the producer and once you get totally involved in a project—playing on it, trying to decide—it's too hard to separate yourself from the thing.
There are a few people who can do it, but they have worked at it and worked at it. Stevie [Wonder] does it. Todd Rundgren does it. But they're in the studio all the time.
What would you do if you had the number one song on the Billboard charts?
I ask myself that question many times and I don't know what I would do. I just hope I stay the same person. I'd like to keep the same goals.
I would not want to go out on the road, for example, and become the female version of Prince, or the Black equivalent of Pat Benatar, or start wearing spandex pedal-pushers and "come fuck me" pumps. That's not really what it's all about.
There was one point during your show when you said, "I've worked my nerves."
I really like when that happens to me on stage. I really like it when I actually enjoy what has taken place as much as the audience seems to. Then I have to sit still for just a moment because I don't know what to do. It feels real good to be moved that way, but it's not really me moving myself.
I was talking to a friend yesterday about how I go off stage after a gig and, if I feel like we've done a good show and the audience liked it, and everybody is pretty much happy, then I go to the mirror and say "it's not you."
I've done that every night since I've been on tour. "It's not you; you are the vehicle for the music." I consider myself real fortunate to be chosen to be a messenger but it's not me doing it. That keeps me in my place.
As we've talked about all these things my mind starts working overtime. I think all the time, everyday, what it is that I'm about as a person. And I've shared with you some of the things that I believe I'm about.
But one of the things that I really hope will happen, as I progress and continue on, I would like to be able to see a night when I go on stage and see the audience filled with Black Lesbian and Gay faces. That would be the ultimate "get-off" in my life: to see a crowd of Black Lesbians and Black Gay men supporting me. Supporting ourselves! Because we do sometimes live between two countries."
Fame and fortune have rarely chased Black women vocalists.All too often, they have been the unwary victims of an industry that ingests and regurgitates performers in a whimsical, sometimes fatal fashion. Linda Tillery, however, in the mold of Alberta Hunter and Betty Carter, refuses to submit.
End
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