imageBlessed with an impressive phonation and a way with words, vocalist Teeny Tucker has been singing the blues in her own way for more than 25 years. She started singing as a child, but didn't fall nether the spell of the blues until much later in life, despite family ties that seemingly made the music a natural fit.

She dedicated her last anthology, Put On Your Red Dress Babe, to her father, vocalist Tommy Tucker, to honour his induction into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2017 for his big hit, "Hi-Heel Sneakers."

"I wanted to change it around a bit. I had some potent original songs like "Church House Prayer" and 'Learn How To Dearest Me.", and I love Etta James, so I covered "I'd Rather Become Blind." My Dad is remembered for one hitting, but he wrote and recorded a lot of songs. He has a huge discography. At to the lowest degree I could help go along his retention alive."

Contempo time have brought plenty of loss into her life, and she has been struggling to deal with the loss of loved ones.

"My son Boston was 37 years old, and very talented. He was a nifty chef. They nevertheless don't really know how he died. He went to sleep one night and never woke up. That year was so rough. I had been taking care of my grandfather for seven years. He passed away in May, 2019, and then in September, my godmother passed. Two months afterward my son died.

"And I got a divorce before my son passed. We had been married for forty years. He didn't want it, but I did. Information technology was final in Feb of last twelvemonth. That was a lot to bargain with. All I could practice was to go on moving."

"My whole world roughshod apart when my son passed. And then the pandemic came and doubled the injure. So I started doing fine art. People are really surprised when I tell them that I have never done art before. When my son died, my daughter bought me a small canvas and some paint. I told her that I wanted to pigment a rose for my son, although I didn't know how to make a rose. Simply I just did it.

"When I put a picture of his rose on Facebook, people actually liked it. It took off from there. I was getting requests to paint roses for other people who had lost loved ones. My grandson told me that I should be selling them and then I could get a lilliputian bit of coin back, so he set me upwardly with an fine art website. I don't want to accuse a lot equally people can't beget it correct now. Some of my work has sold quick. People see it, like it, and want to give them as gifts or to inspire someone."

(You tin view Teeny's artwork here: (www.teenys.art)

A hazard encounter with guitarist Walter Trout and his wife, Marie, while in Memphis for the International Blues Claiming final year, constitute Tucker providing the inspiration for a vocal.

"I was walking down Beale Street on my way to a Women In Blues workshop. I ran into Walter and Marie. As we talked, they asked how I was doing, knowing about my son passing. They permit me know that they had been praying for me. I told them that my eyes were dry out, but that my eye keeps crying. I saw a light bulb go off in Walter's face.

"The side by side solar day, Marie was on a panel word. Subsequently it ended, she asked if we could talk. Marie told me that they both couldn't finish thinking about what I had said the night before, and that Walter wanted my permission to write a song using those words. So Walter wrote his song, "All Out Of Tears," based on my son's death. When they sent it to me after information technology was mixed, my God, I was in tears. Information technology is then cute. In that location are all kinds of means you can notice healing."

While stuck at dwelling house during the last eight months, Tucker has also been instruction herself how to play piano. But as a recent retiree, her current situation was not the retirement she had planned for herself.

Tucker graduated higher in 1979 with degrees in Folklore and Psychology, taking a chore as a social worker. She had planned on being a geneticist, only those plans were shelved afterward she got married and started having babies. Finally realizing after 8 years that social work wasn't for her, Tucker applied for a position in the Federal government at the Department of Defense.

image"I figure working for the authorities would be less headaches, every bit I wouldn't exist worrying well-nigh everybody else'southward bug, and it paid more money. Plus the way they scheduled holiday fourth dimension gave me the opportunity to fit in some overseas tours every yr. I ended up working there for 31 years, and spent the last 25 years building my music career."

The singer has received a host of awards and nominations, including ane for the Koko Taylor Award as function of the 2014 Blues Music Awards. In 2011, Tucker was honored with the Carter M. Woodson Honour, named for an American historian often referred to as the "father of black history. It is a federal laurels that honored Tucker'due south work in the community. She has also been inducted into the Department of Defence force Hall of Fame, which is a rare award for civilians or women.

When her two oldest children reached the ages of six and four, she made another change.

"I had been in gospel choirs all of my life. But I decided to start singing blues. A promoter from Europe that used to volume my dad asked me if I sang blues. I told him no, that I sang gospel and some Peak twoscore hits for weddings and such. He started sending me cassette tapes of dejection songs. Once I heard them, I realized I actually liked the music. So I drenched myself in the blues and never looked back."

Tucker first recorded when she was 14 years old, selected to be function of a gospel choir for a big effect.

"I was in the United Gospel Choir. I sang atomic number 82 on the hymn, "Come across Me In Heaven." It was written by Doris Mae Akers, who was a famous gospel songwriter. She would practice a lot of traveling from California, being a minister of music. She would come for our annual gospel convocation, where they joined together the choirs from the area churches. She would select some of the youths to sing lead on songs she had written. She auditioned me, and picked me to sing her vocal, which was recorded on an album. It was my first time in a recording studio.

"Yous know how some people talk nearly what they would do if they could alive their life over? I approximate I would probably do it over again, thinking virtually some things I probably should have washed. The only thing almost it is, blues music but serves so many, which limits how many people will listen to your music. It isn't a big genre in the music business, perhaps 1% of all sales of the industry.

"There are people who are out there working difficult at music, just they don't always go the recognition they deserve. The title track from my Two Big M's album is a tribute that I wrote with my guitar thespian, Robert Hughes, paying homage to Big Mama Thornton and Big Maybelle. It is a pretty cool song that I played earlier today in celebration of Big Mama's birthday.

'I like to write, especially poems. At 1 bespeak, I started using some of those poems as the start for lyrics to songs. That is what I love, writing poems, doing art, singing, playing piano. All of that right encephalon stuff. But please don't give me whatsoever math problems!"

Tucker was ready with a concise reply when asked about the divergence between composing verse and songwriting.

"You can go through a whole lot of words in a poem. That probably is not in accordance with how you might desire to sing it. When I write a song, I normally know what the melody is first, and that dictates how the words will menstruation. You are using words for both, but y'all think of them differently when you lot write them down. Either one can come from existent life experiences, just if I am going to exist singing it, I write it with verses and a chorus.

"We were coming home from the Pennsylvania Blues Festival one day. I told Elaine, Robert's wife, that I wasn't going to bring all of these shoes with me the next time we go out. I told her I had and then many shoes, that I am like that one-time woman who had and then many she didn't know what to do! She told me I should write a song well-nigh that. I started thinking on the way dwelling, then I picked up my piffling pad and started writing, "I got shoes in my closet lined across the wall, flat ones, small ones, ones that make me alpine. I got shoes with my cerise dress, shoes with my jeans, shoes that make me squeamish, shoes that make me clean". That song, "Shoes," still gets a lot of radio airplay."

In 2003, Tucker released her 2d album, First Class Woman, a project she did with Austin promoter Tim Northcutt on his Hot Rod Records label. They had met at the International Blues Claiming in Memphis. At that time, guitarist Sean Carney was part of Tucker's band, a partnership that lasted viii years.

'We needed somebody to practise a photograph to use for the comprehend of the CD. Someone suggested Robert Hughes, considering he was a photographer who likewise played guitar. In the 1960 decade, Robert had the showtime white boy dejection band in Columbus, Ohio, called Hughes Blues. So we met upwards with him downward near Ohio State University to get the photos washed.

image"A couple years afterward, Sean was spending more time touring overseas, so we went our separate ways. I wasn't planning on getting some other band together. I took a hiatus because my Mom was sick at the time. I was but spooky at home. Then Louisiana Cherry (Iverson Minter) came to town. He was a real skilful friend of my father, and also my godfather.

"I went to see Louisiana Red perform, and Robert had put together a petty band to back Red at the show. I was watching Robert play, thinking I didn't know he could play that practiced. I already knew he was a great lensman. I think he is a better thespian than most people give him credit for. In that location was a women's Valentines Solar day program coming upward that I was scheduled to sing at, and then I asked Robert to play guitar for me at that event.

"It sounded really good being on stage together. Later on that we started listening to music, going way back to singers like Big Mama Thornton. That was how nosotros came up with the idea for the Two Big M'south album. The remainder is history. We have now washed four releases together, including my 2018 release, Put On Your Ruby-red Dress Infant.

"But later my son passed away, I told Robert and the rest of the band that I was ready to practise something unlike. The ring has been together for about 14 years. Most of them are retired at present, and they had been going their own manner. Everybody gets that feeling that you take been riding this equus caballus long enough, now it's time to become another i! Robert & I are still very close. We are doing a virtual New Twelvemonth's Eve evidence that will be my last with the band.

"My mind is not in that location right at present. I demand a break. And I don't have a clue as to where I desire to become from here. Merely I did do a project called "Rush Through History" with Bobby Rush. It is a musical project that producer Carl Gustafson has been working on for several years. They are getting ready to release it soon. Bobby recommended me to Carl to sing the theme song. They are putting together a compilation anthology that volition take about thirty songs on information technology."

"Blitz Through History" traces the story of a woman who leaves Tanzania, Africa equally a picayune girl in the 1800s to get a well-respected woman in New Orleans.

"It takes y'all on a journeying from her nascence to her decease. She goes dorsum domicile to Tanzania to die, wanting to be dorsum where she was born. And then I did the main vocal, "Accept Me Home To Die," with a sixteen piece orchestra. They flew me to California, to Jackson, Mississippi, and to Denver. I was supposed to do 1 song, but ended up doing a total of half-dozen songs. It is a huge production.

"I am thinking that I would like to do more projects like that likewise, until I'm led to do something else. Life should be more than but making money. We in the dejection community, who have stuck with it as long as we have, have to love the music. It has to be in your center. I tell people not to come and endeavour to sing blues simply because yous can't become accepted somewhere else. It is a customs, we dear and respect each other. We may not be highly appreciated, but the people who know the history of the music and understand the civilization, they take a deep love for blues."

"If something happens, I might get back out in that location. For right now, I feel like I demand some peace of mind, and I need to get through my grief. Information technology feels like I am doing well with that. I still have some bad days, only I stay strong. I have five grand kids that my son left, so I assistance them a lot. My oldest grandson is taking driver'southward lessons. But with this pandemic, you can't do too much of annihilation"

Tucker is very proud of her two daughters. The oldest daughter is helping raise one of her tardily brother's children, and recently got engaged for the showtime time to a brigadier general. She graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern Academy, wrote for the Chicago Tribune, then worked equally a reporter for several major television networks. She is now the Public Affairs Director for the third largest all-girls school in the country. Tucker'due south youngest girl is married with a son, working in the family unit trucking business organization while doing counseling on the side.

In some moments of reflection, the vocaliser finds herself wondering about what might have been.

"Maybe I could have gone farther in my music career if I hadn't been working another chore for most of that time. I've probably gone over that a thousand times in my listen. Only then I become back to all of the people that have been blessed with my music, my words, and my love. I have served God's purpose for what he wanted me to practise, so at present allow me know what yous want me to do next, because I'm non sure what information technology is.

image"I need to exist more in control of me. I'thou 63 years old, and I don't need to be controlled by everyone, not that I always took orders from anyone. I am learning to let become. My grand kids are non my kids. I never put my children on my mother. I had a husband, a family, and I didn't wait my mother to help me take care of my kids. I was feeling like my grand kids needed me all the fourth dimension. It took me a long fourth dimension to come to terms with that, to do more than things for me. The sudden passing of my son made me realize that I need to do the things I relish while I still am able.

"Regardless of what you practise or where you go, leave somebody with something. Don't do everything in vain. Anoint someone else with what you practice. I recall a show nosotros were doing. I met this little girl who was 5 or six years old. She had been with her grandparents for about a year. Her grandfather said she would not speak due to trauma she had earlier in her life. Once I started singing, that petty daughter got up, her eyes were glowing. She started dancing and never sat down.

"When we had a break, she came over, sabbatum downwards next to me, and said, I like your music! That correct there filled my middle. Another time at that place was a guy that had bone cancer, so he couldn't stand. It was at the Slippery Noodle in Indiana. They rolled him in, I'thou singing, and next thing I know he was standing up holding on to the table. Afterwards, his wife said he hadn't been able to stand or walk, merely he got up and didn't want to sit dorsum down. He really loved what he was hearing. That is the kind of stuff that money tin can't buy!"

Tucker still goes dorsum to her gospel roots, especially equally she searches for new pregnant from life.

"I remember a fourth dimension in Pennsylvania. I told the audience about a woman who had inspired me when I was eight years old. She sang gospel, not blues, and appeared in a 1959 motion picture chosen "Imitation of Life." Her name was Mahalia Jackson, and the song was "Trouble Of The Globe."

(At this point in the interview, Tucker stated singing the song acapella over the phone. Then she moved over to the piano to demonstrate that she had learned to play the song, singing another verse and chorus in her rich vocal style.)

In the cease, Tucker wants listeners and fans to empathise a few things about the music.

"Singing the dejection is not but about singing music. We need to learn the civilization. I have been downwardly in the Mississippi Delta, been to the famous Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale where many legendary dejection artists stayed, been learning quite a bit well-nigh the civilization. Only there is much more to be learned. A heart surgeon needs to learn everything most the heart. Blues musicians and singers need to larn what the music stands for, and how many people accept been blessed by it in this world. It is the American roots music, and without it, music would be sad!"

Please follow and like us:

0