AprilCadence2013

96 | CadenCe Magazine | april May June 2013
Interview Carmen Bradford
armstrong’s lap? That was in 1964 and my mother was his opening act, she was
working with him then. even meeting him backstage and watching that show, i still
remember that, i even remember him picking me up and putting me on his lap, and
his hands were very soft and very thick, thick fingers and i remember putting my
hand on top of his. You know, that photo has my twin brothers standing on either
side of me, and because that photo has been used for promotional purposes, my
mother still gives me a hard time about that until this day.
CAD: So you have two brothers?
cB: Yes, Keith and carl and both are singers, actually. They’re not identical – one
is an accountant who sings at weddings, and the other also plays bass and he’s
in the security business. They didn’t find our lifestyle as exciting as i did. my dad
was an elementary school teacher, then high school and at university level, but
i think the idea of my mother flying off to do uso shows in vietnam with Georgie
jessel, you know, that up and down career thing, the boys didn’t see that as very
exciting, they preferred security whereas for me it was, “let’s go – where are we
going now?”
CAD: So these were your school years in California? Did you ever play an
instrument?
cB: Well sort of….i sort of played clarinet, but i didn’t get any further than jingle
Bells.
CAD: You were studying music?
cB: oh absolutely, i was a music major at huston-Tillotson college in austin Texas,
studied a lot of classical music actually. i thought i’d be an opera singer. for a
minute! But i left school as a junior, and that’s when i met mr Basie.
CAD: You had an interesting singing tutor?
cB: Yes i did. i studied with sonny stitt’s stepdad, whose name was edward
Boatner, a very famous opera coach. i was still living in altadena, and had
just turned seventeen. my birthday present was a trip to new York to visit
my grandfather, and i got my first set of acrylic nails! exciting, huh? and
through my grandfather i got to study with edward Boatner, who told my grandfather
that i could be a great opera singer, but i just wasn’t in to that, i grew up listening
to aretha franklin and Gladys Knight and i was in love with r ‘n’ B, diana ross
and the supremes, that’s where my head was. even though i lived in a jazz house,
you know, even though your mother sings like that on a regular basis, it’s still not a
big deal. nobody else among my friends had a mother who put on eyelashes and
makeup and had her hair done to go to work looking fabulous, but what she was
singing and what i was listening to were totally different.
CAD: Are you glad you spent that time studying classical music?
cB: Well i really enjoyed it, i was in the chamber singers, the top choir, madrigals
etc. and i think it was great training for me vocally, breathwise, vocal control-wise.
i did a couple of musicals in school, but i never felt to aim for Broadway, and still
don’t have any desire to do that. The idea of all that strict sameness, night after
night, always the same, is just not appealing to me.