Youth Voices

CELEBRATING NASHVILLE WOMEN ELLA SHEPPARD AND JACKIE SHANE

It’s Women’s History Month and Girls Write Nashville is outlining great women in Nashville history online and in the pages of The Contributor.

The Youth Voice Column is a partnership between The Contributor and Girls Write Nashville. In Girls Write Nashville, as well as their gender neutral wing Loudmouth Community Music, students are guided through the process of writing and recording original songs. In this project, youth writers will offer essays, poems and insight to The Contributor’s regular roster of stories.

Ella Sheppard

Ella Sheppard was an arranger, pianist, composer, vocalist, social justice advocate (and contemporary of Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington) and Fisk Jubilee singer. She is credited for bringing Negro Spirituals to the global stage.

Ella was born on Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage Plantation in 1851. Born into white supremacy, Sheppard committed her career and voice to advocating for racial justice.

As an adult, she began giving affordable, sliding-scale piano lessons to members of her community, and saved enough money to enroll herself in Fisk University, where she began her career as a Jubilee Singer.

She quickly began a leadership role at Fisk, as she began arranging “plantation songs” (as they were called at the time) for choral performances.

Sheppard led the Jubilee Singers to Ella Sheppard and Jackie Shane

perform for Queen Victoria who stated when she heard the group that they, “sing so beautifully they must be from the Music City of the United States.” And that’s how Nashville became known as Music City.

Women like Ella Sheppard paved the way for women, particularly women of color, to have a national voice through the arts.

Stay tuned for some big announcements about how our students are continuing the legacy of courageous self-expression and leadership.

Jackie Shane

Jackie Shane was a performer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist born in Nashville on May 15, 1940 who is remembered for electrifying performances, showmanship, and an unapologetic fierceness.

We had the privilege of talking to Lorenzo Washington, the “curator of Jefferson street” and founder of Jefferson Street Sound Museum, and a dear friend of Ms. Shane.

Washington said: “She left Nashville when she was about 16 years old, with a travelling band. She was able to drum and sing standing up. The audiences just loved her. She had such a distinct voice. She performed all over little towns around Nashville before she really launched her career in Canada. She felt much more accepted there, as a transgender Black woman.”

Shane was musically inclined since she was a kid growing up in Nashville’s influential R&B scene along Jefferson Street. By age 13, Shane knew she was transgender, and would spend her entire career honoring her musical and personal truth, as one of the first transgender musicians in the public eye.

After leaving Nashville, Shane launched a career in Canada, spanning from the late ’50s to the early ’70s, releasing multiple songs that rose in Canadian charts. She moved back into Nashville in the early ’70s to take care of her mother, who was battling a terminal illness.

Jackie had been living in seclusion in public housing in Germantown for 34 years, following her mother’s death. “She loved her mom,” Washington remembers, “and when she lost her, she kind of lost the drive to perform how she used to.”

Washington remembers “Jackie was a very proud person. If you didn’t know her, you would have thought she was royalty from another country. She spoke so properly and carried herself so elegantly. She always said ‘I just want folks to let me live my life my way.’ “

Any Other Way, Shane’s first fulllength album, a two-disc collection of her previously unreleased hits, was released in Oct. 2017, and was nominated for Best Historical Album at the 61st GRAMMY Awards.

Girls Write Nashville to unveil new album

Sing Through the Quarantine is Girls Write Nashville’s fourth compilation album consisting of youth-written and remotely recorded songs about life in 2020 and includes themes such as racial justice and isolation.

The album will be released Friday, March 26 on all streaming platforms and we’ll celebrate with a Drive-In Listening Party at the Greater Nashville United Way on Sunday, March 28 2:30-4 p.m. with WXNA’s Teen Power Radio Hour streaming the entire album! We’ll be celebrating all month coinciding with Women’s History Month and will also be fundraising all month in support of future programming.

2020 Vision

By Tiana Williams from the album Sing Through the Quarantine Written and produced by Tiana Williams

Tiana Williams - Lead vocals and piano Jen Starsinic - additional piano and arrangement Kyshona Armstrong - background vocals and vocal arrangement

I had a vision that one day we’d come together Brothers and sisters holding hands no babysitters They say we can’t win But they can’t realize it’s never too late to be friends, not foes The pain I feel rushes down to my fingers and toes But at least I can feel Are you human? Like being Black in this world means I’m nothing? Like we don’t have hearts, minds, and souls Like the pain we have felt has never left holes Like the ones that were left in my brother Tamir A twelve year old boy living off fun, not fear Like my brother Trayvon who was seen as a threat Only wanted Skittles, got death instead

Are you hearing the words that are coming out my mouth? If you hear me, stand up and shout

No justice, no peace No justice, no peace We have to stand up for humanity Fights for what’s right Stand side by side Walk with our hand up, heads up in pride

And on top of all that, Corona’s still here Add another thing to my list of fears The man who calls himself a king With a crown made of copper Waited two whole months before he had a word to offer Calling me a thug makes my people madder and madder But what I really want to hear is, “Black Lives Matter”

Are you hearing the words that are coming out my mouth? If you hear me, stand up and shout

No justice, no peace No justice, no peace We have to stand up for humanity Fights for what’s right Stand side by side Walk with our hand up, heads up in pride

No justice, no peace No justice, no peace We have to stand up for humanity Fights for what’s right Stand side by side Walk with our hand up, heads up in pride