Tonya pays homage to Aretha and Mahalia

5th November 2018   ·   0 Comments

By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer

On Saturday, November 10, Tonya Boyd-Cannon will pay tribute to two, great iconic vocalist, Aretha Franklin and Mahalia Jackson with whom she shares deep roots in gospel music. Cannon, a native of Mississippi and New Orleans resident, is the daughter of a preacher and remains most widely recognized for impressively reaching the top 20 candidates on NBC’s singing competition, “The Voice.”

Like Aretha, Boyd-Cannon also moved from gospel into the secular world of music and has been touring with Turn It Up! The New Sound of New Orleans with the Soul Rebels and trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah. She can also be heard locally on the first Friday of each month at Claiborne Avenue’s Treme Hideaway.

At the benefit performance at the Art Garage, 2231 St. Claude Avenue, the proceeds of which will go to the highly-regarded New Orleans Musicians Clinic, the vocalist will be backed by an impressive trio with pianist David Torkanowsky, bassist James Singleton and drummer Jamison Ross.

“I call them Auntie Aretha and Auntie Mahalia because even though I never met them I feel they poured so much into me – I learned from their words, from their music,” Boyd-Cannon says of her idols. “I’m related to them in music.”

“This has been a serious emotional journey for me as an artist, teacher, community leader, wife and mother,” Boyd-Cannon continues. “I’m so honored to have this opportunity that I can only shed tears of gratitude for what these women have done in the music industry for me. Their approach to the music was so peaceful and then when they opened up it was like ‘Oh my god, listen to that voice.’ They were great storytellers in song and were singing through pain and joy.”

Torkanowsky, who is acting as the musical director for the show and an admirer of Boyd-Cannon’s work, has left the choice of material to be performed up to whatever moves the vocalist. Naturally, he also shares her huge admiration and respect for Aretha and Mahalia as do people around the world.

“Aretha is the voice of the civil rights movement. She was the soundtrack of Black America,” Torkanowsky adds. “They both have provided solace to a great number of Americans in times of extreme angst and turmoil. In that sense they were healers.”

“The songs that I chose I feel resonated with me as an artist and also my inner child,” Boyd-Cannon says mentioning tunes like Mahalia’s moving, “Trouble of the World,” that she remembers hearing as a youngster.

In her selection of Aretha’s hit “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” she reflects back to Aretha Franklin performing the song at the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors. “I remember her getting up from the piano and taking off that mink coat,” Boyd-Cannon says with the emotion of the moment in her voice.
For further information go to www.artgarage.events/

Traveling the Globe Through Music

Sitting in the Treme on a sunny, breezy afternoon just chatting is a wonderful way to spend some pleasurable time. If a friend brings the electronics to hook up Pandora and requests reggae music, the atmosphere changes and New Orleans’ link to Jamaica fills the air and the atmosphere.

Music has been celebrated as a universal language as it’s a form of communication that knows no boundaries. It travels and takes the listener along for the journey. A new release by the musically globe-trotting label, Putumayo, Ska Around the World, demonstrates how ska, a pre-reggae style born in Jamaica and influenced by jazz and New Orleans old-school rhythm and blues that those in the island nation picked up via radio, made its way to countries far and wide. Wherever it went, it maintained its rhythmic heartbeat and often included the essential instrumentation.

The album, a compilation of previously recorded cuts, opens with a group from Brazil which, particularly in the northern part of the country, early on dug into the style originated by their not far off neighbors. It, like many of the selections, is an instrumental performed by a very solid band. And yes, like most great ska, it features a trombone that is so much a part of the sound.

Though the music can stand alone, the comprehensive liner notes really add to the pleasure of the total package. It lets you know that the final tune, “Policy of Truth” is performed by a band from Russia, The St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review. It distinguishes itself here by its use of congas and timbales. On the other hand, a ska-jazz ensemble from New York brings an organ into the mix.

There are some fun moments from a Canadian vocalist on “Real Ska” and a groove of a tune from the Basque area of Spain, that’s sung in Spanish. Any collection of ska must, of course, include the originators. The trumpet, trombone and then saxophone each take a lead role on the legendary Skatalites’ sophisticated number, “Glory to the Sound.”

Ska Around the World provides a fine way to travel by way of a rhythm that found birth in Jamaica, was influenced by New Orleans and has been globally embraced.

This article originally published in the November 5, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.