Black Wealth and All Else Black and Women's History New York Global.Biz Feb/Mar. 2020

DINING AND ENTERTAINMENT FASHION
Melba Moore The Day I Turned To You
By: Eileen Shapiro
Tony Award winning singer, actress and
Broadway superstar Melba Moore is set to
unveil her newest inspirational release, "The
Day I Turned to You", on December 13, 2019
which is already available for pre-sale at
Amazon Music.
Born into a musical family, (saxophonist
Teddy Hill and R&B singer Bonnie Davis),
Melba Moore began her career in 1967, when
she recorded "Magic Touch", which became a
huge track on the Northern Soul Scene. That
same year she also began performing as Dionne
in the original cast of "Hair" alongside Ronnie
Dyson and Diane Keaton. In 1970, Moore won
a Tony Award for Best Performance by a
Featured Actress in "Purlie" for her role as
Lutiebelle. This was followed by two film roles,
and a release of two successful albums. She
starred in films including, "All Good Dogs Go
To Heaven", and "The Fighting Temptations",
and appeared on television on "The Melba
Moore Show." Moore was also the first female
pop and R&B artist to perform a non-operatic
solo concert at New York City's Metropolitan
Opera House.
I had a charming and uplifting conversation
with Ms. Moore regarding her new album, her
faith, and her aspirations for the future...she was
kind, warm and candid.. with an adorable sense
of humor. She is also a triumphant storyteller..
I love your new Single "Calle Me', the duet
with Shirley Murdock. What inspired your
recording of that?
I had lost everything at that time, in the late 90s.
I discovered that I was a Born Again Christian.
But, I discovered it kind of privately. I really
didn't have a church-based outlet and then when
I tried to get sacred music, I really had to start
from scratch. First of all I'm Catholic, and I'm
still Catholic and that music isn't very popular
music. People do not want to hear opera. So, I
reached out to people. I was in the church
community because I was invited to one of the
first gospel musicals before Tyler Perry started
doing gospel music. Michael Matthews who
started this thing told me to do a gospel play.
So, I was out on the road with a bunch of
"saved people". I knew that's what changed
about me because I was saved, otherwise I I
wasn't around anybody and I wasn't part of any
church or anything. But all they did was praise
Photographer: Alan Mercer
praise God all day, even the bus driver. I was
in a very strange and unique place. I
discovered this and of course I was out on the
road with singer Shirley Murdock. Of course, I
knew her voice and everything, but not as a
woman of God. I asked her if she could write
something for me so that I could share my
testimony. I didn't even know at that point
what a testimony was. Then I discovered in the
secular world they just call it your
autobiography. It was a whole New World and
Shirley said that she had come to see me in
"Purlie". She said I was so nice to her so she
and her husband, Dale DeGroat created some
things for me, and she really didn't charge me.
They told me I could do whatever I wanted
with it. So, it's all these years later that I'm
going to have a real distribution and it's going
to be on my label, and the distribution is
SONY and these are all major people. But I
was just doing this because I am an artist, I
mean God made me that, and I needed to
express myself. That was the inspiration.
Yes, that's because I am. That's my job now.
That's a good job to have. You're also
embarking on a project beginning
now until February? That's for
Norwegian Cruise Lines. That's not
Gospel. This ship is called The Escape,
they have many, and they do
international Major entertainment
cruises. I'm going to be the star of the
Broadway production that they are
featuring called, "After Midnight."
That sounds like fun. You've had a
very interesting career. You're a
Broadway Tony winner, you're a
recording artist, film star, what were
some of the challenges you had to
face?
That's a good question. The greatest
challenge is learning how things really
work. I come from a family of artists,
we are African American. So, in some
ways, we are trying to catch up
commercially and culturally, with the
rest of the population because we came
here as slaves. When I really think about
it, I was probably among the first in my
family of our generation to go to college
or even finish high school. Everything
within the culture is self-taught for
example my parents traveled on the road
in a time when black people couldn't
stay in hotels or even go to the
bathroom. But, we lived in New York
City.
New York City was different. You
have kind of a combination of the
cultures that we experience as African-
American people. The biggest challenge
was learning business. Most African-
Americans whatever talent or skill they
had we still knew nothing about
commerce. We didn't get any education
so whatever we learned was stolen
knowledge. For many years it was
against the law for us to read or write, to
vote, to own property, to get paid for the
work we did. It hasn't really been that
long that African-Americans couldn't
get paid for recordings. So, the greatest
challenge for me both as a woman, as an
African-American and as an artist was
to learn the partnership of business.
That's a difficult thing for a lot of
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