INTERVIEW: Marva Whitney
She was the original Soul Sister No.1, the one-time member of a family gospel group from Kansas City who grew to become the rawest, most impassioned of James Brown's funky divas.
In the late 1960s Marva Whitney toured the world as part of the James Brown Revue, breaking new ground by playing in Africa, Vietnam (at the height of the conflict) and the even presidential inauguration of Richard Nixon.
Now 40 years almost to the day since she quit working with the Godfather of Soul, she's back, performing with the Japanese funk band Osaka Monoaurail and releasing new music reminiscent of her heyday.
"I heard they were looking for someone that they felt could enhance them or that they could work with," Marva explains of her link-up with Osaka Monoaurail, a nine-strong 'funk orchestra' formed by Ryo Nakata in Toyko in 1992. "With anything you don't want two left shoes. I was blessed, they liked me."
When she heard they sounded eerily like her old employer, she couldn't resist. "I really thought it was Mr Brown. The person that gave the record to me I told them to quit jivin'. He convinced me that he was not. Right away I said, 'What is this? A novelty band?' He assured me that it was not. So I said, 'Sure'. I did not have to learn different beats, different styles, it was like being at home – and it still is."
To return to the stage after some long lean years, she says, "is an answer to the dream that I had". James Brown cast such a shadow over the business that when she chose to leave him in December 1969 "everyone was scared to work with me".
"That was 40 years' worth," she sighs. "We made it through. I had some family backing and things." Now, she adds, it's a real pleasure to be working with Ryo, "we can almost read each others' thoughts".
When she and the band perform on Thursday, November 19 at the HiFi Club in Leeds, Marva says we can look forward to a broad sweep of her career. After all, funk is back in vogue.
"They used to say every 40 years clothes came round to the same style. We have found this is what they want to hear now. They want to hear the basic one, two, three. They want to hear the funk. We have different age categories but they all seem to be of one accord."
She now tries to explain what the songs mean, to give her audience "a little bit of healing, a little outlook that things are going to get better – that way you don't just come and see an empty show". Her music is for the feet and the mind, she says. "I don't like airhead music."
Marva's present globetrotting is certainly a far cry from her roots in Kansas. She used to say she started singing at the age of three, "now I say it started in my mother's tummy". The eldest of seven children, she grew up harmonising and playing piano in the family group the Manning Gospel Singers. They travelled the States until her mother could tour no more, then Marva joined other local groups.
Then in 1967 her manager Clarence Cooper landed her an audition to replace Vicki Anderson in the James Brown Revue. After watching them perform twice in one day in Kansas, Brown "brought up one of those little tape recorders and gave it to Alfred 'Pee Wee' Ellis".
"He took me through the gamut. I think I surprised him a little bit when he hit a chord and I said, 'I want it here'. When he got through he gave it to Mr Brown. That was when I got nervous. He said, 'Young lady, you sound good. I think we might make a record. You want to sing?'"
Though she'd been invited to join Bobby 'Blue' Bland and Little Richard's bands, Marva opted to become part of the Revue because her manager knew some of Brown's Famous Flames. "So I took the chance and I'm glad I did," she says.
Further details of her time with Brown – and classic records such as It's My Thing and What Do I Have To Do To Prove My Love To You – will be detailed in a forthcoming book, but Marva does let slip a reminiscence of President Nixon's inauguration.
"It was a hectic day. I did not have a gown. I found something very nice. I was wondering who I would share a dressing-room with. It happened to be Miss Dinah Shore. She was a gracious lady, so down to earth. I really enjoyed that."
As for her proudest achievement in her career, the now 65-year-old singer says it's "never succumbing to the streets when things got low".
"I was not a doper. I was not negative. Some of us grew weak. I was able to hold my head up.
"This is where I've thought that children in showbusiness ought to get a little education because it's not always going to be roses and you've got to eat. My mother said that if I was going to stay around I had to finish school. Then I went to secretarial school so I could always make some sort of living. When things happened I could walk straight, I could live a normal life."
Marva Whitney and Osaka Monoaurail play at the HiFi Club on Thursday, November 19. Tickets are on sale at Jumbo and Crash Records. Doors open at 7pm. The album I Am What I Am is out now.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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