MUSIC

continued from p. 58 knew my voice.

I was really happy for their success. They had a record out called “So I Can Love You.” Every time I turned around I’d hear it on the radio. One day I was at a recording session and I decided to call home. My roommate told me that Mr. Hutchinson had called me. So I called him back. He told me that Jeanette was leaving the Emotions, and I was their first choice to replace her. So the rest is history. Their father told me they would never let her back in the group, and I didn’t have to worry about it being a temporary situation.

I really enjoyed singing with them. We got along. We traveled all over the United States and Canada. Wanda and Sheila did most of the leads. I was the high voice. “Put a Little Love Away” was supposed to be my lead song. I knew it was the beginning of the end—I could tell something was happening. When I went in to record the lead vocals, their father sent Sheila in with me. So there’s both of us on that lead. I knew it was because I wasn’t going to be there. No pun intended . . . I was emotionally prepared for Jeanette’s return to the group. [Laughs.]

Al Bell, who was the president of Stax Records, o ered me a solo album. I did six tunes towards an album on Stax, but I never finished it, because Stax failed at that time. Al Bell told me they had been watching me, and they wanted to pull me from the group anyway.

So I started getting calls to do jingles, and I would do all the harmonies. I started singing background with a couple of ladies, Joni Berlmon and Rhonda Grayson. Joni was really the contractor, and she would call me. She was working for my uncle Carl Davis at Brunswick Records. Carl was my father’s brother. So we ended up doing background for all of his artists: Gene Chandler, Walter Jackson, Tyrone Davis, the Chi-Lites, and others. I’ve had the pleasure to work with some wonderful producers and singers—producers and arrangers such as James Mack, Tom Tom Washington, and Willie Henderson.

It is such a blessing. My voice is a gift, and I’ve been able to use it. I love being in the studio. I could spend all day and half the night in a recording studio. At one point I wouldn’t sing background onstage with anyone—I just wanted to be known as a studio vocalist. I never cared if people saw me; I wanted people to hear me. But I ended up singing all over the world with Otis Clay. I sang with Otis for 26 years. He introduced me to Europe and the world. He’s been gone for seven years, and I still miss him so much.

I sang with the Jessy Dixon Singers. I’m singing on that recording he did with Paul Simon called “Wartime Prayers.” I ended up going on Ramsey Lewis’s promotional tour for the Between the Keys CD. I was in heaven. I worked with Syl Johnson and his daughter Syleena Johnson. I did a record with Jerry Butler called “I Can’t Stop (Lovin’ You Either).”

My first love is doing background vocals. I have always enjoyed harmony. I did my first session when I was around 15, and I fell in love with it. My father, Arlington Davis, was a wonderful saxophone player. He taught my sisters harmony, but he didn’t teach me. I got it naturally. Background singers need to have a good ear. They need to be easy to get along with and patient—you might be in the studio a long time. You need good people skills. That helps with everything in life.

Joan Collaso

My parents noticed I had talent, so they put me in the church choir. I had a music teacher at Louis Wirth Elementary School who would take me and two other people weekly to the Chicago Children’s Choir rehearsals. That was like in seventh and eighth grade. Then I went to Kenwood [Academy] and met Lena McLin. I was a soloist in her choir. You couldn’t stop me from singing.

One of my outstanding memories was working with a group called Data; [later] it was called AL7. In that group was Randy Hall, Rob- ert Irving III (who ended up being the bandleader for Miles Davis), and Felton Crews. We were 18, 19, and 20 years old. We wrote songs. When Randy sang lead, I sang background. When I sang lead, they sang background. That is one of my great memories with being in the presence of greatness, at a time before we knew where we were headed.

The next great memory was when I started singing jingles. That opened the door to a lot of group singing. A choir with Lena McLin. A chorus during college. I sang in touring choir. Every choir that was, I was in it.

I did a lot of background vocals for Robert Kelly. It was great music, and a lot of sick people do great music. I was not involved in any of his shenanigans. I’m singing on a lot of his big records. I’m singing background on the duet he recorded with Celine Dion, “I’m Your Angel.”

For the last two years of her career, I was a background vocalist for Aretha Franklin. I join that list with my sister singers Mae Koen and Diane Madison, who worked with her for many years. It was like being in a dream, but having to be real serious at the same time.

The first gig I did with her was in Boston. She had just started going back to work after being ill for a while. She was in praise mode, thanking God for allowing her to make it through. She sat down at that piano and sang “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” I can feel it now. She played herself happy. She cried. We cried. Oh, it was amazing. And I was the one who got to sing the high note on “Ain’t No

Way.”

That was the only time she sang that song during the time I was with her. She would change every gig, because she had such a great repertoire to choose from. But I can say I did it that one time. [Laughs.]

She had started to work on a project with her son and her granddaughter, so I got called to Detroit to do some background vocals for that. We had started on that, but of course we didn’t get to finish it. But I got to be in the studio with her as the producer. That was fantastic. So I am very grateful to Fred Nelson, her musical director, for that. It was because of him that we were there. And thanks to Je Morrow, who was in charge of our section.

Three times in 2009, I performed on The Oprah Winfrey Show as a background vocalist for Susan Boyle, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson, Sugarland, and Tim McGraw. I got an opportunity to sing background for Al Jarreau—he’s my favorite. This was for a benefit in Chicago. He was wonderful. Working with Stevie Wonder was wonderful. He was doing the 2015 Songs in the Key of Life tour. We did the midwest portion of his tour.

I teach my kids that relationships are everything. I choose you if your attitude is good, before how well you can sing. People will call you if they like you. Be professional, kind, and on time. All these years I’ve been getting calls. Most of them are from the same people, over and over and over. v