DIUNNA GREENLEAF: I AIN’T PLAYIN’

A Track-by-Track Review of Her New Album

The set opens with a blues romp called Never Trust a Man, which Koko Taylor had recorded on her 1981 Alligator album titled From the Heart of a Woman. “The Queen of the Blues” passed in June 2009. “Koko taught me that song a long time ago. We called each other on the telephone all the time. She asked me ‘why don’t you call, I gave you the number?’ ‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’ ‘If I gave you my number, it’s not disturbing me.’” To a degree on certain songs Diunna’s strong voice and delivery bear a resemblance to Koko’s.

Diunna wrote a nice, mid-tempo toe-tapper named Running like the Red Cross, and on this track she’s backed by the Sons of the Soul Revivers, a trio consisting of Walter, James and Dwayne Morgan. “This is a song I wrote, when we were invited to sing at the 150^th Anniversary of the British Red Cross for Queen Elizabeth in London, but I never recorded the song before.” The jubilee took place on August the 4th in 2020. “The song actually has three verses, but my apartment where I wrote the song in got destroyed, when the hurricane came, so this is the only verse that I remember exactly.” The hurricane Harvey hit the area in August 2017.

If It Wasn’t for the Blues is a mid-tempo soul-blues song that its writer “Big James” Montgomery first cut in 2001. “Noel chose the song. One day during this pandemic I was singing it and he said ‘that’s perfect for this record’, and he was right. He said that ‘this song describes some of the things that I have been going through.’” Igor Prado is on lead guitar on this track. Some of you may recognize the song from Mighty Sam McClain’s CD, One More Bridge to Cross, in 2003. Mighty Sam (in my interview with him at the time): “James Montgomery is a young man I met in Chicago, while on tour. We played Buddy Guy’s Legends there. He gave me a CD and said ‘this is my gift for you. I’ve been a fan of yours for years.’ When we left, I put it on in the bus and I just fell in love with the very first song, If It Wasn’t 4 Da Blues. I liked the groove, but I also liked what he was saying. There’s a message in there, too.”

Answer to the Hard Working Woman is a straightforward, “hard” blues number that Diunna wrote. Diunna: “Otis Clay recorded a song called Hard Working Woman and this is my answer.” Written by L.J. Welch, Otis’ funky delivery was released on Cotillion in 1970. “Me and Otis would speak often. As a matter of fact, Otis and I were together at B.B.’s funeral. He at that time said to me ‘we were supposed to do that music with B.B., and he’s gone now, so we don’t want to wait too late before we do the music together on your CD. Then Otis died. It was two weeks and three days before he was supposed to come and record with me.”

I WISH I KNEW

I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free is a song that evolved into a civil rights anthem in the late 60s. It was first recorded by its co-writer Billy Taylor in 1963, but is best known by Nina Simone and Solomon Burke a few years later. Diunna’s touching version starts gently but grows strongly towards the end. “With everything that’s going on in this industry and how hard it is for women in this industry, and the many ways I’ve been held back just because I was black or because I was a female band leader - I did a song saying what was happening then is happening now.” On this track as well as most of the tracks on this set there’s a horn section of Mike Rinta, Aaron Lington and Jeff Lewis supporting. “I never got a chance to actually meet Nina Simone. I was supposed to see her in concert in Austin, Texas, but she passed away” (on April 21 in 2003).

Diunna’s Sunny Day Friends is basically a mid-tempo blues number, but it has a swinging jazz arrangement. “I just wrote it like a juke joint stomp, but I wanted people to realise and remember that jazz came out of blues. Blues is still the mother of jazz, and this same song could be done in a jazzy way. I do gospel and blues, but there’s a whole other audience who knows that I do jazz also.”

If that was a surprise track, wait till you hear the next one, When I Call Your Name. Written by Vince Gill and Tim Dubois, Vince’s original version of the song hit #2 on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts in 1989. Alabama Mike is the guest vocalist on this pure country treatment of the song. “Again I wanted to remind people that many of the great artists that do country are black Americans, but a lot of people don’t know it – just like they don’t realise that many of the greatest cowboys were black, and also Latino.”

I Don’t Care is a gloomy, slowly swaying rhythm & blues number, which Dennis Roberts first released on Yucca in 1961. Turns out that Long John Hunter (1931-2016), and Dennis Roberts are the same person. “I hired him many years ago, when I was the President of the Houston Blues Society, to do a show along with Phillip Walker and Lonnie Brooks in 1999. It was called Lone Star Shootout.” On this track Sax Gordon plays tenor sax and Miss Bee baritone sax.

Joe Medwick co-wrote and released a slow moaning blues called Damned If I Do on Westpark in 1969. “I am friends with Joe’s daughter Loretta here in Houston. Also my godfather, I.J. Gosey, and his friend Johnny Brown were friends with Joe Medwick (1931-92) and recorded with him. They were the backing band for Junior Parker.”

So far we’ve listened to blues, soul-blues, jazz and country, so it’s time for a spiritual. I Know I’ve Been Changed is a slow traditional that’s been recorded almost by anybody – LaShun Pace, the Mighty Clouds of Joy, the Staple Singers, Aaron Neville etc. etc. “That’s also one that Noel did choose, because we wanted to go back with that one to honour the legacy of my mother and father also.”

LET ME CRY

Back Door Man is Diunna’s song that she first recorded fifteen years ago but at that time as a funky blues number. On this CD it is reconstructed into a quick-tempo ditty. “Again to let people know that the songs I write are versatile enough to be done in different ways.”

Johnny Copeland’s (1937-97) slow blues, Let Me Cry, originates from the 60s, but it came out only in the late 80s. “I was a friend of Johnny Clyde Copeland. He was also friends with my uncles. Johnny had some problems later with his heart. He had a show here in Houston at Billy Blues, and he could still play but he was too weak to sing, so he had me coming sing for him. It was that same year that I first met Shemekia. She’s from New York and I remember she was a little girl.” Shemekia was born in 1979.

The concluding song, My Turn, My Time, is Chicagoian Deitra Farr’s catchy dancer from 2005. “Deitra is a friend of mine, and she asked me to record this song. I’ve loved this song for many years, because it again says just what I have been going through. Deitra talks about how she cried because she knew she was being misunderstood. Even though Deitra is retired now, I hope her strength will come back.”

A full feature on Diunna with an interview is pending on this site. Meanwhile please have a listen to this strong new CD.

© Heikki Suosalo