Judith Owen, the piano-playing singer and Llanelli native has long since settled in California with husband Harry Shearer, but remains a down-to-earth Welshwoman, as Rhonda Lee Reali found out in a fascinating Zoom chat. With a new album playing homage to pioneering female singers, Judith Owen waxes lyrical about those inspirations of hers…
Meeting Judith Owen via Zoom is akin to downing an espresso or two. She’s passionate about many things: her music, other’s music, her animals, reproductive rights, the environment. Just back from walking her Labradors, Aretha Franklin and Frank Sinatra (the cat’s name is Duke Ellington) at her California home she shares with Harry Shearer of Spinal Tap and Simpsons fame, the singer-songwriter’s enthusiasm is infectious.
With a Llanelli father, opera singer Handel Owen, and a mother from Kidwelly, Owen is “very Welsh in my sensibilities and my musicality,” as she puts it. Weekends spent watching dress rehearsal at Covent Garden influenced her immensely as did her parents’ record collections, from classical, blues and jazz to big band and swing. The early African-American female singers found in Handel’s collection of 45s are celebrated in Judith’s 13th studio album, Come On & Get It.
Paying homage to well-known singers including Peggy Lee and Julie London, while also celebrating forgotten ones such as Nellie Lutcher, Julia Lee and Mary Lou Williams, Owen spoke at length about the women vocalists, musicians and songwriters she covers on her latest record and why they mean so much to her.
“My father had this collection of 45s from when he was a kid, and I didn’t realise that they – the Nellie Lutchers and the Julia Lees and the Mary Lou Williamses – weren’t stars, particularly in America, of course. These were race records that were on an even footing in the UK, and were hits. Nellie Lutcher was mobbed by the fans after she played [London’s] Prince Of Wales Theatre and had to be escorted back to the hotel every night by the police. Of course, when they went back to America they were going through the kitchen. That’s the realities you know better than anybody.
“During COVID, I was literally so depressed, crying, because I was so scared that I would never do this ever again, as so many of us were – that feeling of utter pain that you can’t do the thing that is your self-medication, which is performing. So that’s why I made this record – because it seemed the most perfect thing to do is to turn to this joyful, ecstatic, hopeful music that’s filled with double-entendres and innuendo and humour – true, brilliant humour!
“Some of these women were known, many weren’t at all, many are forgotten. But they all had one thing in common and that was they were unapologetically, singular, one-of-a-kind, steer-their-own-ship. They were women in control – maybe not in their personal lives; I’m going to be straightforward about that, because their lives were wretched often – but when it came to their music, they were accomplished, brilliant musicians. They were arrangers, writers, performers, articulate, intelligent, funny, and they bridged the gap between Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and then going into the Arethas and the Nina Simones. They bridged that gap, and they did it with joy.
“America is shaming women yet again, and making us feel like we need to go back in our place because we have no sexual rights. These women were talking, singing about sexuality – female sexuality – and celebrating it at a time when nice women, nice girls, were meant to sing about romance. And to me, that’s an extraordinary twist that here we are again. Yet again.
“Dinah Washington crossed over with Mad About The Boy and so many other songs that were then played and made for a white audience. But predominately the music of Nellie Lutcher, Julia Lee and Mary Lou Williams – that’s Satchel Mouth Baby, that was covered by Nat King Cole – again, these were race records, made for a black audience, black radio. These were not meant for a white audience – except if you were in Europe and Britain, in which case they were heard by everyone, which is a great irony. That’s pre-Civil Rights America, as you know.
“When I came to America for the first time, I asked my husband – who seems to know everything about everything – was he a fan of Nellie Lutcher and Julia Lee? And he’s like, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of them.” It was just so shocking to me. Shocking! Nobody knows about these women at all. They deserve to be adored and loved because they opened the doors to Blossom Dearie and Peggy Lee and so on and so on. They did. And they were this incredible group of women. They were leaders, trailblazers really, because they were the bandleaders. The men were backing them, but they were the leaders.”
Judith Owen’s Come On & Get It is released on Fri 7 Oct via her Twanky label.
Info: judithowen.net
words RHONDA LEE REALI