Albina Soul Revue Is Coming!
It's finally happening! Earlier this year, I was awarded a grant by RACC to bring together members of Portland's original soul music community in concert. In conjunction, we preserved an LP of lost Portland soul music from back in the day. Once again, it's finally happening!!!
Let me break it down...many of you know I've been actively interviewing and archiving music from elder musicians in the Albina community of North and Northeast Portland. Over the past year this developed into the Albina Music Trust initiative of the World Arts Foundation, Inc.--an organization for whom I have tremendous respect. WAFI has been doing community arts and education work in Portland since 1978. In essence, this partnership has turned what was a budding hobby of mine into an all-consuming way of life, an endless puzzle, and above all a labor of LOVE.
The Albina Soul Revue is a reflection of that. Literally, hundreds of musicians and community members have come into our studio at XRAY FM to share their history with me, on and off mic. We have documented and preserved photo collections, film, church sermons, business card collections, newspaper clippings, posters, and last but not least, soul music (not to mention jazz, funk, gospel, boogie, and disco!). I'm consistently shocked many of these bands and the community that supported them have been so underrepresented. The most consistent response I hear in my oral history work is, "No one's ever asked me that before." I've learned that something as simple as conversation is a powerful thing.
Again, the Albina Soul Revue is a reflection of that. Last Fall, I was rapping with Tony Ozier about the soul community and its lack of exposure back in the day (we're talking 1960s-80s). Back then, there was really no local industry supporting Albina musicians outside of Albina. The music itself had been redlined--it had been confined to this one part of town. Vinyl record deals were rarely made with bands in Albina yet we now know that a wealth of music was recorded. I showed Tony some of these recordings. He felt that a broader audience needed to hear the music and that we had the potential to bring the original musicians together again.
Here we are a year later and it's real. In the coming weeks, Tony's group will be rehearsing with a who's who of Albina's finest. Along with Ken Berry and Michael Grice at WAFI, I am working with a production team to support the process. We are flying former resident musicians in from out of state. We are charting soul songs that no one's heard before. We are spending time and money that we don't have to do work that we believe needs to be done.
Friday, November 16th at The Alberta Rose Theatre. Please mark your calendar. I'll share more about the LP we are releasing at a later date. Thank you for listening.