 FREDA PAYNE was briefly in London a couple of weeks back, primarily to promote the release of her new album, "Payne And Pleasure", but also to make the acquaintance of the London staff of her new record company, ABC Records. The subject of that new album seemed the ideal place to begin our conversation…
JA: Let's start by asking you how happy you are with the new LP.
FP: I'm very happy about it. I think it's a good album and I' m pleased that it's the type of album that doesn't just have one outstanding song. People seem to enjoy all of the songs although they do tend to lean towards side two. Maybe it's the fact that they recognise the songs, whereas side one is more new material and is a dancing kind of side. I enjoy side one myself, though. But then I think that this album is the best example of my vocal ability and I'm more relaxed than I've ever been at a recording session. And I think the album shows me off more as a true singer than I've ever been shown. It shows how much my voice has matured. And I think I show more soul on the soul songs than I've ever shown before. Yes, I would say that this album, my first for ABC, is a kind of a milestone in my career. It's like a fresh start for 1974 to me but, of course, this is really just the beginning. But it has underlined to me the importance of albums because you need really extra-special songs to make a successful album. This album has been a beautiful musical experience for me — I remember I once mentioned to you that I don't enjoy playing my own records, remember? Well, I honestly do enjoy playing this one.
JA: Was there any obvious difference in the way this album was recorded?
FP: Well, we used the same basic technique but it was a little different from Invictus. At Invictus they would do the whole band track and I would sing over it all, you see. And I wasn't allowed to sing the way I wanted to sing, I had to sing the way they told me to sing. On this album, the producer just told me to be myself and I just sang over the rhythm tracks and they did the sweetening — the strings and brass — after the vocals were down. If I did anything that was really incongruous with what they wanted, they would pull me back but it didn't happen but once. And I'm the type of person that feels that if I'm working with a producer, I will go along with him to a certain extent and respect what he is looking for. But this time, the arranger came in and heard me sing some of the songs first. Then he laid the arrangement down so that it suited my way of singing the song. In fact, he put down on tape my way of singing the song so that it was accurate and the company gave me the priviledge of letting me comedown to hear the band recording the tracks if I wanted and this was something that was never done at Invictus. I was given much more respect and allowed much more freedom for this album than I've ever been afforded. That's why I'm much more proud of this album than I've been of anything I've recorded in the past. I'm not saying that it is the most fantastic album in the world but to me it's better than what I've done before. It's a better representative of me than anything I've done before and Gene Page, the arranger, is just about the best there is, as you know. And in the future, you can expect only better I think.
JA: Which are the tracks that you particularly like yourself?
FP: Oh, there's so many of them but I like "I Get Carried Away", "I Don't Want To Be Left Out In The Rain" and I like "Shadows On The Wall", "The Way We Were" and " A Song For You". And I like "Run For Your Life", too. And "It's Yours To Have" is the single. But at one stage it was gonna be "l Get Carried Away", which I think is still my favourite. I hope they put "I Get Carried Away" on the 'B' side so that people can just flip it over. Nowadays, DJs often flip records.
JA: And what about this rumour that you may be starring in a Broadway show? Is there any information available that you can give us right now?
FP: It all started two years ago. A guy by the name of Buster Davis, who was the musical director for "Hallelujah Baby" which starred Leslie Uggams and was on Broadway in 1 967 — any way, I was Leslie Uggams understudy in the role and the show was a hit show and won Leslie a Toni award. And from that show, Buster Davis said that if there was ever any show that he was going to be involved in, he said he was gonna track me down and see if he could let me have first shot at the lead. At the time I was really struggling but it wasn't until about two years ago that he called and told me about a show that he was expecting to work on called "Doctor Jazz", all about Storeyville in the 20s and 30's. It's all about a jazz singer and dancer who went to Europe to succeed and in actuality it all turns out to be very reminiscent of Josephine Baker. It's all about that era and there'll be a lot of jazz singing in it for me. And there'll be lots of dancing and acting, of course. My only acting experience really was in the movie " Book Of Numbers", and, to be honest I like singing too much to want to get too involved in acting. Acting and movies will probably be part of my life and I'll enjoy it but I'm not dying to get deeply involved just now. I learned a lot about the motion picture business from "Book Of Numbers" so it was a good ' experience for me. I learned a lot about the politics and background of the actual business — oh, I learned a lot! At least I know now what to do!
JA: Will that experience help you with the Broadway show?
FP: No, I don't think so because I think they are two different worlds, really.
JA: What do you expect to gain most from doing a Broadway show?
FP: I expect to gain a great career boost as the main thing, I guess. More prestige and more respect as an artist, too. It will help to get on to TV shows because the showbiz media in the States leans heavily towards anybody doing a Broadway show. Especially — God willing! — it it's a successful one, because if you come out of it as a star then it can be an introduction into anything you want to get into . It will mean that people will be ringing me with scripts and things. Right now, it's me waiting around for them.
JA: How important to you is your career?
FP: My career is very important to me because it's the only thing I've got. By choice, too. I enjoy entertainment and I've become much more relaxed in my private life. I do prefer to stay around home, though, because I'm the home-y type. It's no longer a fascination to run around discotheques and clubs and so on now. My career is a means to my existence and it is what I've been put on earth to do, I feel. If I were a nurse or a teacher or a ditchdigger, then it would be the same, it would be my reason for being here.
JA: This trip to Europe — what are you primarily here to achieve this time?
FP: This trip is mainly for promoting my album and to let people here in England and Germany know that I'm alive, well and living! And that I'm still active and recording. And, most important of all, I'm with a new record label and I've got something to sell. It's been successful from the standpoint of promotion. And I'm certainly very happy with Anchor Records over here, which is affiliated with ABC Records back home. I've also done a few concerts here and a few appearances for the military in Germany but it's really just my way of staying in touch with Europe.
JA: Of course, you've been here in Europe before you became popular in the States…
FP: Yes, that's right — back in '65. In those days it was strictly a cabaret act. I worked in Germany, France, Spain, Scandinavia and I worked in Manchester here in England. I had recorded for Impulse Records before I came over to Europe and directly I returned to the States, I signed with MGM Records.
JA: Musically, Freda, you started in jazz, passed through a straight pop-soul period at Invictus and now you're leaning more towards the good music style. Would you say that your period at Invictus was out of context with your career from a musical viewpoint?
FP: Yes it was out of context with what I wanted to do musically but it was a necessary event, something that I knew I had to do. I had never tried to have a hit, really, and I got to thinking what kind of artiste am I if I don't try to have a hit. Am I so grand that I can only do one kind of music, that I must do only one kind of music. I must be woman enough to want to master other forms of art and to better my career. You see, I'm not a true Rhythm & Blues singer — like they say, you either have it or you don't and I don't! I can assimilate it or recreate it but it's really not me and it's not really what I want to be. When I go back to when I was ten or eleven years old, my idea of music to appreciate was classical music or Miles Davis, Theolonius Monk or Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday. My musical background wasn't R&B.
JA: Does that mean you didn't grow up the same way as most Soul singers?
FP: No, I wouldn't say that because we all came out of the same pot still. Aretha Franklin's father was a pastor, so she grew up under fine circumstances as far as living. She came from a fine home and she had everything she ever wanted. But with her father being a minister at a Baptist church, she grew up in a R&B-Gospel environment whereas my father loved classical music so I grew up in a classical environment, you might say. I even went to a methodist church and there was only a little of the shouting that a baptist church experiences. It was all very subdued, quiet and restrained, you see. I don't think it's a question therefore of economical background — people use that as a crutch to complain by. That's their excuse but I don't believe that it has anything at all to do with how much soul you've got. Because I know plenty of doctors, of artists, lawyers who came from very poor backgrounds and who pulled themselves through on their hands and knees. And they supported themselves and worked their way through college. You can be poor and proud and you can be poor and negative and it's the negative people who don't make it. All of us are born with the ability to be someone but it's the negative aspects that prey upon our minds and hold some people back. That's where you get alcoholics because it's the negativeness in their spirituality that lets them get that way. That inner strength is so lacking that it pulls them down, to the point where they don't survive. And inner strength doesn't mean you have to come from a rich family, does it? And soul has nothing to do with being poor in my mind. No, some people use it all as a crutch to go through life on. It's an escape.
At which point, the lovely Ms. Payne had to make her escape to appear on a TV show. However, since the time of the interview, ABC have released the single in the States and it's so-far-lack of success suggests that Freda may well be right in suggesting that "I Got Carried Away" will be the album's track to set her career in motion. And there is already an army of her followers who would agree.
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