The following is an extended version of the interview that ran in our August issue, on its way to newsstands now.
Photo by Joe Martinez
Dee Dee Bridgewater is talking about her 2017 album, “Memphis ... Yes, I’m Ready,” when suddenly she stops.“Oh, my goodness, I’m looking at an alligator right now,” she says with a laugh. Living alongside a lake in New Orleans, the Grammy- and Tony-winning jazz stylist — recently an expatriate residing in France — is still getting accustomed to bayou life, and enjoying meaty reviews for her new disc. Here, she sinks her teeth into Bluff City classics by Elvis, Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes and Ann Peebles. Bridgewater, 68, has traversed the jazz spectrum with her chameleonic voice and boisterous stage presence. Headlining the Richmond Jazz Festival for a second time, she'll perform selections from the new album and gems from her genre-smashing career.
Richmond magazine: You were born in Memphis, but you didn't stay long.
Bridgewater: No, I left when I was 3. But, growing up [in Michigan], I would listen to a station out of Memphis, WDIA, and that's the sound i fell in love with.
RM: Define the sound of Memphis.
Bridgewater: It’s a funky sound, gritty; it’s got the blues and the rock wrapped up in the soul music. When I was listening to WDIA as a teenager, late at night, the songs just had more soul to them and there was more grit to it than with Motown music, which I listened to during the day. It moved me. I just liked the gritty element of it. Motown was such a clean sound, and I think they would even say today a more manufactured sound.
RM: So you wanted to revisit that childhood sound?
Bridgewater: I did this album for myself. I was looking for something to do, and at the time I was caregiving for my mother — this was before her transition — and I was looking for something to pick me up, to buoy me, something light that I could have fun with for a change. And I was conscious of my age, and the fact that people in their 60s or their 70s become staid, and I didn’t want to settle. I wanted to make music that made me dance and that would inspire people my age and older and get them to think about looking at their lives in a different way.
RM: In the 1970s, you were amazingly open to everything — experimental free jazz, disco, pop.
Bridgewater: I even had offers to go into classical music. I was gifted with a flexible voice that can sing all styles. And if I commit to it, you'd think that was the style I've been doing all my life. ... And then there's Broadway and the musical theater. That demands another kind of singing. So ... I've been all over the place. I've just always tried to be true to me and the things that appeal to me.
RM: Do your jazz peers give you much blowback for the disco and pop you've done? Or maybe even for championing Memphis R&B?
Bridgewater: In the beginning, there were people who were skeptical, and once in a while, I'll be programmed at a jazz festival and some of the musicians won't give what I'm doing now any credence at all. Which is OK with me. I'm not out there trying to please them. The people love it.
RM: Talk about living in France. How did that happen?
Bridgewater: Paris had always been a dream city for me. I told my parents when I was 7 years old that I was going to live in Paris, France. So, I was doing an international touring company of “Sophisticated Ladies,” and when we got there, the rest of the tour was canceled and I just stayed. I married a Frenchman, I had a huge hit that was never released in the U.S., with Ray Charles, called “Precious Thing.” In the process, I received the highest accolades from the Minister of Culture, I’m a Commander in the Order of Arts and Letters and was named an officer in the Legion of Honor. That just happened.
RM: Are you OK there with that alligator?
Bridgewater: Oh, yes, I’m inside looking at him out the window. See, this is why I don’t walk my little dog by the lake.
Dee Dee Bridgewater and the Memphis Soulphony perform at the Richmond Jazz Festival at Maymont on Aug. 11. $79.50 to $147. richmondjazzfestival.com
