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Unknown: The Interview with ES Tara Morrow, eighth of April, 1969 basically, what I want to do is just get some background biographical information on you, how old you are, how you got into singing, how long you've been singing, what kind of

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singing, how you think of the singing you do, how you describe it. So why don't we just take the basic question like, Where were you born? I was born in Newport, News, Virginia. I'm in my mid 20s, and

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I start singing in the church, with the choir, with the choir, and I stayed in in Virginia until I was in my late teens, early 20s, and I decided to come to New York, in which I did, and I continued To go to the church because we have one also in New

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York City. The same, same thing, same denomination. Yeah, you were still singing as a church singer. Then you hadn't. You hadn't gone into secular music. No, I hadn't. A matter of fact, I was working downtown and in

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the garment district, so you weren't even singing. Were you singing professionally? No, I had no intentions of singing, even as a gospel singer. I mean, no,

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just only in the church, and while I was working in the garment district, there was a party for one of the bosses, and I sang happy birthday. And he asked me, he says, Esther, do you know to

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sing? Do you know I believe I told him I did. And he asked me to sing it for him, and I did. And they introduced me to my present manager, who was your manager, Norma

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Ryan, and James Ryan, your son. And leave me on, you know, oh, yeah, I will okay. So you came to their attention. That was about when, four or five years ago, three years ago, about approximately, going on, six years I've been saying, You

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know what kind of So you started singing professionally. Then what kind of work did you do? Where did you work? Well, I work with Duke, Duke Ellington. I did the first

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sacred concert with him in San Francisco, yeah, and then he took me on tour with him for two months, and I went to Europe with him.

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And I would say approximately, I worked with Duke Ellington about two, about a year off and on, doing the sacred concerts. Then I began to work with Harry Belafonte. I worked at the Latin casino with him. Also went to Europe with Harry Belafonte and

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Dr Kees. And Harry Belafonte took me on tour for five months. And from that you know, things began to happen. How did you, Oh, go on. How did you meet? How did you get? How did you come to Duke's attention in the first place?

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Do you remember well, there was a piano player, I think was Joe Savannah or chick chick Korea. Chick Korea, one of the two played come Sunday for me

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was chick, yeah, and it was a beautiful tune. And there was someone who says, well, there was a friend of ours who knew Duke. Says, Gee, I wish you know Duke. Could hear this. And she said, Well, I know Duke personally. I'll get you to him

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so you can hear it. And he heard it. And two months later, he called me from Lake Tahoe, and he asked me, you know, would I be interested in doing the sacred concert? So I said yes, and he told me, you know, the album to get to learn the music.

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And about a week or so later, I went out. That's how I got so you never really started singing professionally gospel music. You started, you were singing, singing secular music, almost from the word go, do.

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Yeah, I just Well, I've always loved singing, period, yeah, yeah. There's like Mahalia Jackson, where you really had to wrestle with the question of whether you would perform secular music or not. Jesus seems to be very reluctant

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to well in the beginning, because that was only music that I knew, and that was gospel. And I was kind of skeptical. I didn't want to go out into into the commercial thing. But the music

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that I sang now, I find, not only now, a little was earlier, I said, the lyrics mean a lot to me. Yeah, I noticed you projected yourself into carpenter last night when I could hear I was Yeah,

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and whether it's gospel, you have a lot to say, what people call commercial, and you can it can really be gospel. To what you saying. Sure did your reading of it. Yeah. Who are your favorite

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songwriters? If you have any favorite song writers? Well, whose music do you like to sing? Let me ask you that. Well, right now I'm sort of creating my own but before I began to do

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this, Mallea Jackson and the way Otis Redding would say, I like that, and Ray Charles, Aretha, I think she's beautiful. Yeah. Did she make any change in your style? Or were you singing pretty much the same way as you've always were you singing

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now the same way as you've always sung? Aretha, no, I would say at one time, I had a pattern of over Mahalia Jackson, but now and I was like, searching for something, because I knew within myself there are a lot of things I would say would

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sound like Mahalia, but now I got It's Esther. You know, you may hear say, well, oh, she sounds like briefly, she may sound like Mahalia, but really deep down within it's, it's not like getting even the way they pronounce the word. It's, it's

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all Esther now, which is hard to do, very hard to do. That's the hardest part of becoming an artist is creating a style distinctly your own. I think I noticed you have a lot of you seem to have a lot

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of friends in the jazz world. Do you think of yourself as a jazz singer? Or do you think there is any such thing as a jazz singer? I don't think of myself as a jazz singer. I'm just a singer, period.

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And so far as being a jazz singer, we've put from the beginning of music, we've put labels on it. But music is so wide because, say, for instance, if for and in other words, I can, I can sing what you heard, we call rhythm and blues with a

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gospel touch, right, right, like Ray Charles, yeah. And then again, I can go, maybe to fill more east or west, and they would say, well, she's saying psychedelic. So, you know, you really can't, like I said once before an interview, can't put a

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tag on it if you have the ability to sing what they call jazz, rhythm and blues, gospel, rock, you know. But how can you say, well, she's this kind of singer, because you can do them all. I didn't necessarily agree with that. I just wanted to see

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what your thoughts were on. And I kind of think your point of view. What are your feelings about the well, is this the first album you've done? Or yes, what are your feelings about it? What do you think about in retrospect? In retrospect, I

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mean, looking back at it, now that it's all completed, how do you what do you think about it is all done now, yes, except for about two numbers, which I'm going over.

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What are your feelings about it? I think it's great, and I'm very happy because it's my first album, and I want to see what how it's gonna go over to the public.

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It will be very interesting to see. They feel what I feel. Because I'm trying. I'm not just saying for my enjoyment. I want to sing to make the people happy, and maybe they can understand some of the thing. Because what I'm saying,

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although some of it is, is, you know, the tempo is here and there. I'm really saying something, you know, so far, it's like, like, a conversation. It's interesting. What do you think you're saying?

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Saying a lot of things about today's life, what's happening in the world around us. You really, you know, dig into the lyric. A lot of the songs, such as peaceful man, no answer came. He don't appreciate it. Walk Tara. And especially a peaceful

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man, he looking really looking to the Lyric is saying hell of a lot you haven't that's, I haven't heard. Peaceful man, no little so disadvantage there, I won't hear until I get the double the

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album. Is there any particular story about how you happen to sign with ABC, or did somebody just come up? Well, Bob field, the producer, he heard me in New York at the sacred concert we did with Duke Ellington, and he told me about

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it. He said he wanted to come backstage when it was a very cold night, and, you know, getting the cab. Yeah, so I'm with associated bookings. And when Joe Glaser heard me, he called Bob Thiele, which at that time he was with ABC, and Bob

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field said, Is that the same girl that did the sacred concert with Duke Ellington. So Johannes is, you know, yeah. So I said, Yes. So Bob feels, as you know, I've been looking for, trying to find her. And we got when I met him, right away, I said, this is

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my man, you know. And we got together, and it's beautiful, because Bob feels a lot of what I feel and I feel a lot of what he feels. You know, you seem to have a good rapport working together. From

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what I could just pick up. It's like the you I can feel the vibrations from the I'm not quite sure you can feel the vibration from me, you know, I think I have enough to write a set of notes. What do you think?

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I think so too. Okay, shall I give your voice a rest? Okay, sure. Do.