Somewhere past the throngs of hipsters who crowd the staircase at the Sala Rosa Friday night, Naomi Shelton is preparing to take the stage. Having forgotten her trademark threads somewhere in Brooklyn, she steps out of her van and makes her way to the dressing room in a plain denim jacket and carrying only an extra pair of shoes. Not that she is disappointed at the thought of performing in her street clothes: there seems to be nothing about this petite woman which suggests bitterness or disappointment at being shut out of the main stream music industry for the past 40 years. Naomi Shelton most likely would still be traversing the musical wilderness if it were not for Daptone Records and their quest for ‘authentic’ soul music, but she is here, en-personne, at Pop Montreal; and for the crowd lucky enough to have arrived early enough to be stuffed through the door, she’s nothing less than a godsend.
When she talks of music Naomi Shelton believes in two things: providence and love. She believes music is love, and she believes it is divine providence that we are here tonight sharing her gift. For the majority of her Pop Montreal audience, myself included, the choir music and church singing of a humid, rural Alabama Sunday service is an experience we’ve only witnessed in movies; and while her repertoire runs the gamut of soul, blues, 60’s R&B, and gospel, the show is infused with the essence of a big-top revival meeting. Over the next hour we’ll sing praises, raise our hands in the air, try desperately to dance the twist, and even try to answer that old Zen riddle: what’s the sound of white-man clapping? All this and in the end Shelton and her music will ask us for more: more soul, more love, more praise.
Half way through her set, in which she plays every recognizable song from the new album, the keys start humming the intro bars to Sam Cooke’s classic “A Change is Going to Come”. It’s a song that’s been passed down through generations of soul singers. As a child I heard Otis Reading’s version long before I heard Cook’s. I remember that while I thought that Cook sang with the introspection of a man who was ultimately hedging his bets, it was Redding who skinned all but the bare essentials from the song and made it his, but it is Shelton who performs without the anxiety of the other men. Under these lights there is nothing but the calm assertiveness and voice of a woman who believes that every measured step over the past 66 years of her life has brought her to this stage.
NOMAG interviewed Naomi Shelton. To read it, click HERE.
by François Dupraz / photos by Rodolfo Moraga
