SANDRA Hall may sing the blues, but she definitely is not feeling them. The renowned blues vocalist who peppers her conversation with 'wonderful' and a deep throaty laugh is convinced the blues do not have to be melancholy.
'I'm not a sad blues singer, I sing some slow numbers, but I do up songs, I try to keep people happy. Some people say the blues is sad, but it's not sad, it's the way you live your life,' said Hall from Illinois last week.
'If you picked cotton all of your life and broke your back and you've got 10 children and you've got no money coming in and you've got to weigh this sack of cotton to get a pack of beans, now that's sad, that's really sad. I never had that hard a life.' For the 50-year-old 'empress of the blues' - who has recorded blues tracks Pump Up Your Love and Boogie Woogie Fever - singing the blues has softened the blow of problems she has had in her 35-year career.
'My family, we know about hardship, we're black. We had hard times and hardships and we couldn't make ends meet. And then there's the husband that walked out on the family. That's sad, but if you pump that up, you forget about that worry. Blues to me is uplifting, it's supposed to bring that sadness out.' Excited over her first trip to Asia this week for a five-night stint at the Jazz Club, and ready to head back into the studio to record her third album, Hall is still dizzy from the success of her second album, One Drop Will Do You. Released last year, the album solidified Hall's place in the pantheon of blues joint divas.
'I wrote most of those tunes, and it really pushed me up, really got me swinging. It has been wonderful this year. I've been pushing it hard, and the last CD really opened a lot of doors.' Hall has been singing since she was four, getting her start in gospel music. As she got older, her grandmother would let her and her older sister sing the blues at the family's weekly 'fish fries' at their home in Atlanta, Georgia. Belting out tunes by artists such as Laverne Baker, Ike and Tina Turner and Etta James got the 12-year-old Hall and her 13-year-old sister a job singing the blues in local nightclubs - with piano-playing grandmother as chaperone.
In 1965, aged 17, she formed the Exotics - a time when soul girl groups were at their height of popularity. The trio opened for great soul artists such as Aretha Franklin, Jackie Wilson and BB King. Eleven years later Hall left the band to pursue a solo career as a blues artist, but it was not until 1995 that she finally signed a record deal with Ichiban and released her debut Showin' Off.