Musicwoman Magazine Spring 2020

LLADY MAC

Interview with LOIS MCMORRIS aka LADY MAC in Kansas City, Missouri

by Joan Cartwright

JC: How did you come to music as a child?

LM: I was always drawn to music and art. Decades ago, people listened to the radio as television was just dawning for the general public. When I was a little girl, we had a big, tall wooden radio. My sister and I sat on the rug in our family’s living room in front of the TV. Each evening, we were enthralled, listening to the radio shows. Since there was only audio, the spoken words painted pictures, while the musical tones gave me a certain feeling. When I heard the guitar, especially Spanish guitar tonal configurations, it rubbed against my solar plexus and I had such a deep, moving feeling. It was almost too much to bear. So, at three, I drew back from the guitar, consciously.

I had polio at three years old but I recovered. Our parents enrolled us in tap dancing lessons and we were in recitals. This was good for us. It kept our bodies moving and made us budding entertainers. Although I shunned the guitar, musical expression, and creativity drew me in. At four, I put rubber bands around cigar boxes and depressed them downward with one hand to change the tone, while I plucked the string with the other hand! This was the essence of guitar and stringed instrument playing.

Sometimes our family, was invited to Sunday dinner at The Jackson’s home. They had a piano. After dinner, we would be excused, and my sister and I would play the piano in the living room, while the adults talked over coffee. Mr. Jackson showed us how to play Chopsticks, which we played incessantly.

Music and art were in me. By 9, I played clarinet, flute, and piano. Later, I added the upright bass, electric bass, and violin. But something was missing. They were not giving me what I wanted. I wanted to solo on the guitar and create shows. At eight, I asked my parents for a guitar, during the summer. On the Mickey Mouse Show, Jimmy Dodd played great chords on his Mouse-guitar. I loved those chords and the sound. Christmas

came and my parents gave me my first guitar –a Mouse-guitar, actually a ukulele. They didn’t play any music but they sang to me and showed me how to tune the instrument.

A year later, they surprised me with a six-string guitar with two metal strings and four nylon strings. I was so happy to receive this instrument. By 11, my cousins would come over and with my sister I played music. We had a music combo with cardboard boxes for drums, brooms for the bass, and my six-string Roy Rogers guitar. Although we were pretending to play, I knew I would be doing this on my journey through life. When my parents got me a beautiful, acoustic guitar, I taught myself songs that I heard on the radio. I listened and located the exact tone on the guitar. My parents watched me practice and were surprised at my rapid advancement. Then, they got me an electric guitar with an amplifier. It was a SilverTone guitar. The action was faster and smoother than my acoustic guitar and I loved the tone.

I had acquired music books with notes and chord that were so beautiful. I learned my major sevenths, 9/6 chords, and minor flat five chords from studying music books from the music store where Daddy would get my strings.

I loved Wes Montgomery. Jazz organist Jimmy Smith, and guitarists Kenny Burrell and Phi Upchurch were my mentors. I learned Kenny Burrell’s solos. Decades later, he called me, after seeing a televised performance I did in Los Angeles and complimented my playing and performance.

As a young pre-teen, I received the cherry red Gibson SG that had beautiful action. This guitar was a gift from my beloved father, who passed away, suddenly, three years later.

JC: Did you study music theory?

LM: Yes. I studied and played the upright bass in junior high. I studied the guitar on my own. I learned music by ear, then, expound upon it.

Con’t on page 60

Interview with LOIS MCMORRIS aka LADY MAC in Kansas City, Missouri

by Joan Cartwright (con’t)

Con’t from page 17

I was enjoyed writing and reading music charts. I was around musicians, but had no formal training from them. In retrospect, they were abrasive, disrespectful, and misogynistic. I studied, practiced, and learned on my own, opting for excellence.

I moved to Los Angeles with my daughter and, three years later, my Mom passed. I took an intensive course at a music school in California for one semester. I played a lot of guitar, learned theory, wrote charts, and arranged music.

I had to qualify and pay for the Guitar Intensive Program at the music school. The guitar teacher was a drill sergeant. He knew Wes Montgomery and he could articulate what I was there to learn. He taught me how to color with the music. When he left, the program ended. I applied the musical vibration frequency that I learned from him to what I was doing musically like a scientist.

JC: What was the name of that school?

LM: Dick Grove’s School of Music

JC: How long did you live in California?

LM: I was there for 26 years.

JC: Then, you moved to Kansas City?

LM: I moved to Kansa City, Missouri, the music city. I was sent there by Divine Spirit. I was inducted into The Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame in 2005, joining stellar artists Gabrielle Union, Television One, radio station owner, Kathryn Hughes, Terry Lewis, and Buddy Miles. In 2007, I received the Black Music Hall Of Fame

In 2014, I won the national award for Best Black Female Guitarist from Black Women In Jazz and the Arts in Atlanta. Also, I won Best Black Female Visiual Artist 2014. At the Playboy Jazz Festival I headlined with my group LadyMac and the MackAttack. I headlined with Grammy award-winner Al Jarreau and platinum vocalist Howard Hewitt. I perform, record, paint, sculpt, and I have a new CD and show for 2020.

JC: Did you experience any push back from men being a female guitarist?

LM: Yes. It was to such an extent that I was sent to Missouri to recover from it. When you’re in a fight, you might not feel all the blows you receive, until later on. When the event is over, you feel the pain and negativity as you heal. I experience lots of discrimination and threats for playing my instrument well. For example, in Los Angeles California, I went to the jam session at the Parisian Room. A jazz musician told me this was the way to put my hat in the ring and advertise my talent. You showed what you could do and passed out your cards. This was how you met other musicians who had gigs.

My boyfriend and I were with another couple. They called me up to play but, when I walked on stage, the male musicians looked at me and walked off of the stage. They had never heard me play and did not give me the respect afforded to a male musician. They left me there, alone, which was not in the spirit of a jam session.

Jimmy Jewel Lifetime Achievement Award.

Interview with LOIS MCMORRIS aka LADY MAC in Kansas City, Missouri

by Joan Cartwright (con’t)

The audience and I were shocked. After several awkward minutes, the club owner, Red Holloway, said, “I’ll play with you, baby.” He sat at the piano and the other musicians straggled back to the stage. I soloed through the chord changes of the tune and received a standing ovation. The musicians said, “Yeah, yeah! Baby you can play!”

I experienced this, over and over, again, with different faces at different places. Jazz organist Jimmy Smith told me these were tactics used to debilitate female musicians. It is 10 times harder for a female musician of color to make it. I salute my musical sisters for their stamina and perserverence!

JC: My philosophy is that you were in your mother’s womb the first time you heard music. She was the first musical instrument that you encountered because the blood running through her veins is the strings, her heartbeat is the drum, and she was probably humming. So the female body is the first musical instrument that every human being encounters.

L.M: Wow!!!

JC: Why are men so jealous and anti-women musicians? It’s getting better. But, back in the day, it was impossible. So, why do you think that they are like that?

LM: People that act like this are abusers! We live in an sociopathic abusive society. Intentional conditioning and lack of awareness perpetuate abusive behavior. We are spiritual beings incarnated in a physical, energetic body at this time in space, where we are conditioned to live in patriarchal, violent societies. Racism and sexism are predicated upon false beliefs, blind hate, control, greed, and toxic conditioning from 26,000 year Dark Age. Now, that is ending and humanity must arise from the ugliness and viciousness of the conscious actions of those who embrace the isims.

JC: Do you write music?

LM: Yes and produce all of my music.

JC: How many songs have you composed?

LM: It could be over 100.

JC: Do you have a publishing company?

LM: Yes.

JC: Are you with ASCAP or BMI?

LM: BMI

JC: How many CDs do you have?

LM: Lady Mac One was my first CD. On sale, now, is Lady Mac One Plus and the single, Sister Line I have an EP and I am working on the next recording.

JC: Where else did you tour besides California?

LM: I went to Frankfurt and Kiev, Germany. I was in Ukrainia. Also, I toured across Canada! I’m looking forward to doing my concerts in London!

JC: Have you been to other continents or countries?

LM: Yes. I was in the Far East, in Bangkok, Thailand, where they had the billboards that move. That was in 1994. Also, I was in Indonesia, Jakarta, Seoul, Korea, and Japan.

JC: How long did you work with Coolio?

LM: A few months maybe. I did the X-Games in Oakland, California, where he introduced me to the world via ESPN. We did the Forum in Inglewood. He was a cool guy.

JC: How did you meet Gail Jhonson?

LM: Gail Jhonson is my sister. I was gigging in Los Angeles at a club and someone told me that I should meet her. I heard her name a lot. I was dating this wild guitar player, Ricky Rouse. One evening, we went to different clubs to sit in. At a club on the Santa Barbara Plaza in the Crenshaw District, L.A. community music scene was popping. The group was Fernando & Spice led by saxophonist and vocalist Fernando Harkness. Gail Jhonson was playing the keyboard.

Ricky and I each sat in and soloed! After the set, Gail smiled and said, “Gir-r-r-r-rl-l-l!” We laughed and have been friends every since! I joined that group with Gail and we played together in two other groups, Velvet Jazz, all-female group managed by actress Marla Gibbs. She owned Marla’s Memory Lane in Los Angeles. Her clientele was Black Hollywood icons. Gail and I were joined by the awesome violinist, Karen Briggs. This group named Joie had three other ladies, Elmira Collins, MaryAnn McSweeny, and Andrea Brown. We opened for