Photo by Photo by Jonathan Mannion
Lalah Hathaway
As a kid, Lalah Hathaway had fantasies like any youngster, and they didn’t have to do with music. This might not seem strange for most children, but for the daughter of the late, legendary soul singer Donny Hathaway and classically trained vocalist Eulaulah Hathaway, it was.
“I used to tell my mother I wanted to be a magician and she would say, ‘No, no, you mean a musician.’ And I’d say, ‘No, I want the Mr. Magic set for Christmas,’ ” says Hathaway, laughing. “As a kid, I wanted to dance, act, be a magician. So I was always geared towards something in the creative arts. But, really, music was always going to be it for me.”
Photo by Photo by Jonathan Mannion
Lalah Hathaway
After attending the Berklee College of Music, the teenaged Hathaway recorded her first single in 1987, and followed a couple years later with a self-titled debut for Virgin records, launching her now two-decade career. “I always say if I’m good at something else I’ll never know. Because so much of my life and so what I do has been about music. I guess it’s always who I was,” says Hathaway, who performs at the Cannon Center tonight, along with Will Downing and Gerald Albright.
The 40-year-old songstress has long been beloved among contemporary R&B and soul audiences for her solo albums, which have occasionally been broken up by long stretches (10 years between her 1994 effort A Moment and 2004’s comeback Outrun the Sun) and a variety of collaborative projects.
Last year, she signed a solo deal with the re-launched Stax label and released a new disc, Self-Portrait, this summer, which proved to be her highest charting album yet. The album also marked a creative peak, as Hathaway guided every aspect from the songwriting to the album’s packaging.
“Really, the thing that prevails is me being able to express myself as an artist. With the first record I did, I was very young and I kind of just showed up to the sessions. And sometimes the songs were chosen for me, and sometimes they were chosen with me,” says Hathaway. “But with (Self-Portrait) it’s the benchmark and the bar for how I want to create music: I chose everything, was involved in everything. It’s not so much about control, but more about making the record that I hear in my head and being allowed to do that.”
As Hathaway notes, music held tremendous sway in her family — her younger sister Kenya Canelibra is also a singer, one of the backing vocalists on “American Idol.”
Hailed as an heir to her father’s legacy (Donny Hathaway committed suicide in 1979), Hathaway’s most often classified as a soul artist, but her vocal style takes in a range of roots music influences. “Certainly, the foundation of what I do is soul music. I grew up a kid in the ’70s, listening to my dad’s music and other soul music from that era. But, to me, soul music is a broad term and it covers jazz, gospel, and R&B. I think soul music is more about a feeling than any one genre.”
Significantly, Hathaway has devoted much of her time to collaborating with a range of jazz, gospel and a capella artists, including Marcus Miller, The Winans, Take 6, Grover Washington, and Joe Sample. “I’ve been blessed to work with a lot of the people that mentored me growing up — whether they knew it or not. Working with Grover or Marcus, those were amazing experiences, and as a result the fan base I have stretches really far and wide,” says Hathaway, whose latest project brings her together for a live gospel-blues effort with Grammy-nominated, Memphis-born saxophonist Kirk Whalum.
Hathaway, who maintains a consistent touring schedule, has dates booked well into next year, but adds that she’s already prepping her next recording project. “I’m doing a record for kids. I haven’t quite figured out the concept. It’s going to be a record that families can share with their kids and bring them out to the show. Because I think that’s important.”
With her career in a stable place, Hathaway says she’s hopeful that will allow her to release solo efforts more consistently. “I would love it if 10 million people bought my albums ’cause I would love a Bentley and all that stuff,” says Hathaway, laughing. “But what’s really important is that people understand my music and that it moves them in a special way.”
Visit Lalah Hathaway's Web site at lalahhathaway.com.
-- Bob Mehr: 529-2517
The Soulful Christmas Tour
Featuring Will Downing, Lalah Hathaway and Gerald Albright; 8:30 p.m. tonight at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts, 255 N. Main. Tickets cost $68, $59, $52, $49 & 39 and are available at all Ticketmaster outletsa, online at ticketmaster.com or by phone at 525-1515.
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