INTERVIEW WITH SHAYNA STEELE

Photo courtesy of Marjo Parjanen

  A powerful and impressive interpretation of Ray Charles’s I Believe to My Soul, was the opener in the amazing Shayna Steele concert at Sellosali (https://www.espoo.fi/en/sello-hall ) in the city of Espoo in Finland on April 19, 2024. It is also the first track on Shayna’s latest album titled Gold Dust, and it was followed by many other songs from that marvellous record, including such beautiful and emotive ballads as Goodbye and January, the thought-provoking The Bloodline and the jazzy You’d Be So Nice. We’ll have a closer look at Gold Dust at the end of the article.

  Among other highlights in the concert there were not only tributes to Whitney Houston with the dramatic Saving All My Love for You, to Bill Withers with Grandma’s Hands and to Michael Jackson with the frantic and inventive version of Baby Be Mine, but also a couple of funky and even Latin fusion numbers. This remarkable one hour and a half show ended with an encore song, the tender Runaway with only Vitek Kristian accompanying Shayna on piano. The rest of the time she had also Al Street (guitar), Brian Cockerham (bass) and Ross Pederson (drums) backing her up and occasionally bursting into exciting solos. Shayna actually had the honour of being the first artist to perform at this year’s April Jazz Festival (https://apriljazz.fi/en/home).

Photo courtesy of Marjo Parjanen

SACRAMENTO – RAMSTEIN - BILOXI

  Shayna Steele was born in Sacramento, California, on September 23 in 1975. The name Shayna is of Yiddish origin and means “beautiful” – in this case an apt name if any. A few other Sacramento music celebrities we know include Lynn Anderson, Mary Love, Gregory Porter, Club Nouveau and one “bluesoul” artist that I recently featured - https://www.soulexpress.net/marcelsmith.htm.

  Shayna was born to Lorraine DeGrasse-Steele and Bobby Donnell Steele, and she’s their only child. She has two half-sisters and two half-brothers. Shayna: My father was a singer. He passed away five years ago. He taught me everything. We used to sing together, when I was young. We did plays and musicals together. We had a very musical family. My father also played trumpet and he was an actor as well, at the local level. He did some background work in the movies. It was more of a hobby, not a career. He was in the armed forces.”

  Shayna has no recollections of Sacramento, because her father’s work took the family to Germany, when she was only three years old. The Air Base in Germany was located in Ramstein, about 110 km southwest from the city of Frankfurt. “I loved Germany. I loved being there. I did not want to make it to the States.”

  However, at the age of ten Shayna had to move back to the U.S.A. and this time to Biloxi. With a population about 50,000, the city of Biloxi is located on the Gulf Coast in Southern Mississippi. Among music personalities hailing from Biloxi there are at least Gwen Dickey, Leland, Reggie Knighton, Ted Hawkins and Jimmy Bertrand. “The move was hard, it was a bit of a culture shock, because I had no memory of living in the U.S. because I was so young when we left. When I moved back, it was very different. The people were different, food was different, energy, everything… but I found my place there in theatre and music.” Among other things, that meant working in a local community theatre and even in a marching band.

  Some of Shayna’s early musical idols from those days include Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. “…and I grew up on Aretha and the Motown sound like the Temptations and Marvin Gaye.” Shayna’s first visit to New York took place in 1992, when she appeared in a TV show called Star Search, presented by Ed McMahon. In the “Teen Singer” category, the 16-year-old Shayna became second… and right after that she returned home to Biloxi. “I came back to finish the high school.” In Biloxi High School Shayna was voted the most talented in her senior year. “Then I went to college. I was a music major focusing on music composition on flute. I was very serious about flute playing. I had no interest in singing (laughing). But once I started to study that in college, I was like Grrr… – I don’t wanna do that, so I left and started working as a singer. San Antonio, Texas, is where I did my first professional gig at a Theme Park, where they have live shows. I did that as a summer job after my first year in college.”

TO NEW YORK… AND MUSICALS

  Shayna’s second trip to New York in 1995 was not cut short, because she’s still living there. Her most important mentor there at that point was the Grammy-nominated gospel star, Michael McElroy. “I knew about gospel music, but he’s definitely somebody that I learned a lot more about the style of gospel music. He grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, in black churches. He started a choir in New York, and I was a part of that choir for many, many years. I still go in as a guest artist to sing with them.” Michael’s choir in 1994 was first called the Broadway Gospel Choir, and five years later he founded the Broadway Inspirational Voices. “Michael worked earlier at Juilliard and University of Michigan, and now he’s the head of the Theatre Department of the Howard University.”

  “When I moved to New York, my godfather, who’s passed away, started sending me jazz records – Ella Fitzgerald singing Great American Songbook, Sarah Vaughan, John Coltrane, Buddy Miles – and I really just kind of dove in and really took on that sound and studied it as much as I could. He was an eye doctor, and he loved music. He introduced me to jazz.”

  Shayna’s eight-year all-round excursion into the world of musicals kicked off in April 1996, when Jonathan Larson’s Rent opened at the Nederlander Theater on Broadway. Shayna performed in the roles of Joanne Jefferson and Mimi Marquez, and that lasted altogether four years. Her second musical, the revival of Jesus Christ Superstar opened in April 2000 at the Foxwoods Theater, and still later in 2017 Shayna appeared in the off-Broadway “Jesus Christ Superstar” concert.

  Hairspray opened on Broadway in August 2002, and in this version of the play Shayna plays Denizen of Baltimore, one of the Dynamites and Little Inez. Fourteen years later she appeared in the Hairspray Live! TV movie together with Ariana Grande and Jennifer Hudson. On top of everything, she sings on all the soundtracks as well - both as a feature artist, and on background vocals - on such songs as The New Girl in Town, Welcome to the 60s and I Know Where I’ve Been.

  Shayna’s fourth and last big musical was Hair, and it opened in September 2004. “In the concert version of Hair there was a song called White Boys, which I sing with Ledisi, who’s playing here” (she performed at the April Jazz on April 25). In addition to those four spectacles above, Shayna has had roles in other musicals too, including The Wiz and Little Shop of Horrors. “That was just throughout the years here and there. Then I left, because I didn’t want to do theatre anymore. I wanted to sing. I started doing solos. Moby had a band, so I did recordings with him and some live shows and TV stuff with him.”

DISCO LIES

  An electronica musician/producer/singer/songwriter Moby was born in New York City in 1965 and he was popular especially in the 1990s and 2000s. “Moby called me ‘the Donna Summer of our time.’ He said that ‘Shayna sounds like she should be making records in the disco era.’ I had a big voice that he really liked.”

  “It was interesting to work with Moby. He’s very chill, zen, and I’m like WHOOP! It was very casual. We had a mutual friend and he called and said ‘I’m looking for a singer, who can like yell’ and my friend answered ‘oh, you should call Shayna Steele.’ So he just called me, I went to his apartment in New York. We just sat there and he’d just like play and I’d just kind of sing, and that’s how we did it. He recorded it and put it out. He was very casual. ‘Do you wanna go on tour?’ ‘Yeah, sure.‘ ‘Do you wanna go on TV?’ ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’

  On Moby’s 2005 CD called Hotel, Shayna sings on two fast house/electronica tracks, Raining Again and Lift Me Up, and logically she also appears on the Moby Live: Hotel Tour 2005 CD. Among the fourteen tracks on the 2008 CD called Last Night there was an energetic dancer named Disco Lies, which turned into a big club hit. This richly produced stormer almost hit the top spot in Billboard’s “US Dance Club Songs” charts and it was featured in the movie The Backup Plan.

  Disco Lies, however, didn’t have a big impact on Shayna’s career. “It was just a credit - especially because - when the music video came out - they used a model in it, who was lip-synching to my voice. It wasn’t me. But I’m just fine. People do it all the time.”

MOVIES, SOUNDTRACKS AND BACKGROUND VOCALS

  Shayna sings with Moby on four out of the five soundtracks to the Bourne movies between 2002 and 2016. They appear on the turbulent theme song titled Extreme Ways. In the movie Sex and the City 2 (in 2010) in the role of one of the bewitched singers Shayna sings Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, an elegant smooth jazz arrangement to a 1940 show tune, first cut by Vivienne Segal, and later by Doris Day.

  In the music score to the film In the Heights (2021) Shayna sings in the vocal ensemble, and in the 2007 documentary titled ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway she’s featured on two soundtracks songs: I Hope I Get It and Lullaby of Broadway. She also had a cameo role in The Sopranos in 2006 as a wedding singer. “I do a lot of movie soundtracks. It would take forever to list them all. It’s no different than my day job. I go in, I sing, I go home.”

  Shayna has worked on stage with a lot of renowned artists. She was with Bette Midler in The Showgirl Must Go at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas between 2008 and 2010. “I was on stage in the orchestra. I was the one singer, and I was like the fourth Harlette. They called me a ghost singer. Rihannawas right after. That was 2011 until 2012.” Shayna toured with Rihanna in Australia and later in the U.S. and Europe. You can add to the list still Queen Latifah, Dolly Parton, George Clinton and Kelly Clarkson and many others. Kelly’s tour took place in 2014-15. “With Steely Dan I did like a week of touring and only one gig with John Legend.”

GUEST VISITS AND DEMOS

  Shayna has frequently visited on other artists’ recordings, and of over two dozen names that popped up she wants to point out the following ones: a heavy and rocky stormer called Gone Under with Snarky Puppy (in 2013), Bette Midler’s It’s the Girls! (2014), Sunny Jain (2010), Jumaane Smith, Danelia Cotton (both in 2015), Maz and Grace Kelly (both in 2016).

  Her music appears not only on numerous soundtracks, but also on many Various Artists compilations. As stated above, she’s one of the vocalists on Michael McElroy & The Broadway Inspirational Voices (2003), and she delivers a fast, jazz & hip-hop fusion number called Love and Warlords on The Shanghai Restoration Project – Story of a City (2007). With Neal Schon on rock guitar, Shayna bursts into a strong improvisation on a heavy down-tempo song named I Wanna Know You on a compilation titled Tribute to Les Paul (2017). Shayna is also one of the vocalists on a dramatic mover called Save the City from the superhero series Hawkeye.

  “I’ve done demos – hundreds, thousands… It’s rare that I do demo work anymore. Sometimes, like the other day, I got a call to do a demo for Barbra Streisand. I got a call to do Jennifer Hudson’s demos, and demos for songwriters that are writing for movies like the new Wicked movie that’s coming out. I did a demo for Stephen Schwartz for Cynthia Erivo. It can be for new musicals, new soundtracks, and a lot of TV stuff as well. I can do that from home too. I know how to record. During the pandemic I learned how to run Protools and the studio.”

  Shayna really has done a lot of TV, like Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show, Conan O’Brien, David Letterman, The Oprah Winfrey Show, American Idol… “I still do that stuff.”

THE FIRST EP

  Shayna’s debut solo record was a 6-track self-release, which was cut in New York. Produced by David Cook and Ben Yonas and arranged by David, all songs were written by Shayna, although on three tunes Justin Johnson is the co-writer. “We were in Rent together. In music Justin is more into electronica.”

  “This EP is great. That’s where it started. We started it together with David Cook. David (https://davidcookmusic.com) was born in San Diego, California, and was raised in Columbus, Ohio. “David went to the University of Michigan and studied jazz. He was friends with a Broadway actor named Gavin Creel, a Tony-winning actor. They went to college together. He and I met, and he said ‘oh, you should meet this guy, David.’ David was playing in ‘N Sync at the time, Justin Timberlake’s group. We met up and I said ‘I want to start up a band, do you want to write together’, and he said ‘okay, let’s do that’, and so we started writing together in 2002. We got married in 2006.” Now they have an 11-year-old daughter Caia, who was with her mother in Espoo.

  David is a renowned jazz pianist and also a musical director for many big-time artists. He started playing in Taylor Swift’s band Agency. “Now David is Taylor Swift’s musical director, music supervisor. He doesn’t play in the band anymore. He played in her band for about 14 years. Now he does all of the music for her live shows. He did all the live arrangements for her Eras tour that’s soon coming here.” David has released three solo albums: Pathway(2010), Scenic Design (2015) and Loyal Returns (2023).

  The music on the EP varies from fusion r&b to rock and funk. Jazz of course is an integral part of the sound - like on the opener, You Are My Soul, which is a busy jazzy jam that grows into a big-voiced crescendo. Movin’ On is a funky scorcher with a big orchestration, and High Yella is an almost aggressive mid-tempo number. You could call So in 2 U tense contemporary r&b.

  “I really like Dying. That was one of the first songs I ever wrote. I love Whatever You Do, too. I love the horns on that.” On the mid-to-up-tempo Dying, Shayna shows her vocal acrobatic skills, whereas Whatever You Do is a soothing, serene ballad, almost ethereal, and also here Shayna reaches amazingly high notes.

  On her records Shayna uses real live musicians, and on this particular EP there are Adam Roberts on bass and Errol Cooney on guitar. “Errol is a great guitar player. He plays with Stevie Wonder now.” John Clancy is the drummer. “John writes Broadway musicals.” Alan Ferber, John Walsh and Jumaane Smith form the horn section. “Jumaane is the lead trumpet player for Michael Bublé, and Alan Ferber is a great trombone player. His band, Alan Ferber Nonet, does really, really great music. Alan now does big band arrangements for me, and Errol sometimes does live gigs with me. My first band, when I started performing this stuff was eleven pieces. I had horns and background singers.” Not unexpectedly, David Cook is on piano and keyboards.

I’LL BE ANYTHING

  Shayna’s first full-length album titled I’ll Be Anything was released in November 2009 on her own label called Highyella Lowbrown Records. Highyella describes a light-skinned person of white and black ancestry. Shayna’s father was black and mother, who’s still alive, was white. “It was very rare in the United States in the 70s.”

  The set was produced by David Cook and Ben Yonas, and the music was composed mostly by Shayna with David Cook, Justin Johnson and Marianne Bennett helping on a couple of songs, “This album was recorded in three places. I was working with Bette Midler at the time so I recorded in Las Vegas, and I recorded in Oakland and I recorded in Brooklyn.”

  At times the overall sound is quite booming and thundering, like on a hard-hitting funky jazz number called Alright and the hammering and loud What Are We Giving with a strong social message. So Real grows from a peaceful and melodic song into a mid-tempo scorcher.  Different This Time is a jazz & rock fusion track, which turns into a big-voiced delivery. Similarly on the down-tempo and loud 24 Hrs Shayna does some serious octave jumping. She really has an incredible vocal range.

  “I still do a couple of songs from this record like Right on Time, and 4AM Song is my favourite from that record.” Right on Time is a smooth, jazzy song with an exciting rhythm and Donny McCaslin’s sax solo, whereas 4AM Song is a poetic sonic delivery with strong mood changes. It is jumpy, big-voiced and spreads out in multiple dimensions. “We’ve Already Been Here Before is like my first jazz standard that I wrote. I wrote it in New York in a bar on a napkin” (laughing). Of the rest of the songs Wishing sounds like folk song meets fusion jazz, Without a Care is a bouncing, mosaic number, You Didn’t develops from small waves into a blasting storm and similarly Kiss that Girl grows from a string-laden, soft beginning into a rocking symphonic finale. A jazz & rock number named Different this Time also ends with a big-voiced delivery.

  On this album Vashon Johnson plays bass and Jeremy Most both bass and guitar. “Jerry has toured with me, and Eric Smith (gr.) plays with a bunch of artists now like Janet Jackson, Rihanna, Deshan… Marion Felder plays drums for Michael Bublé now, and Taku Hirano is the percussionist for Stevie Nicks and Bette Midler, for a bunch of people – a really great percussionist.” Like on the preceding EP, Errol Cooney plays guitar on certain tracks and David Cook, of course, is on piano. “These are pretty much the same guys that I used on the road. That’s when I like first started touring. I hadn’t been touring that much then.”

RISE

  In January 2015 Shayna released her follow-up album called Rise on Ropeadope Records. Ropeadope is a media company that not only releases music, but works also in clothing business and some other fields of culture. Founded in 1999, Louis Marks is the CEO and today the company is located in New Jersey. “There were a lot of great artists on that label. That’s where I met Snarky Puppy, because they were there before they started their own label.”

  The set was produced by Matt Pierson, who earlier had worked as a marketing person for Blue Note Records and later ran jazz A&R for Warner Bros before becoming the Vice President in that company. “He also manages Samara Joy and produced her album.” The album in question is Samara Joy in 2021. Rise was recorded at Sear Sound Studios in New York, and the songs for the most part were written by Shayna and David. The set almost hit the number on spot on the iTune Jazz Chart.

  The opener, I Got You, is a soft and hypnotic down-tempo song. “I wrote that, when I was pregnant with my daughter.” The bouncy and playful Sunshine Girl is followed by Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy. “I really like that Mose Allison tune.” Mose’s original slowly swaying version from 1968 is turned into a hurried stormer, where Andy Snitzer blows a fine sax solo. A pretty country-pop song titled Can’t Let You Go features Gregoire Maret and Sachal Vasandani.

GONE UNDER

  Alongside Disco Lies with Moby in 2008, the blasting Gone Under with Snarky Puppy in 2013 is another record that Shayna is widely known for outside jazz circles. On this 2015 set we get to hear a different version. “I was doing this version first, and then Snarky Puppy asked ‘do you wanna record that song?’ I had not recorded it yet on my album, so they recorded their version. It’s a very different version.”

  I Will Be Love is a beautiful, soothing ballad with strings – cello, viola, violin – backing Shayna up. Bill Withers originated Grandma’s Hands in 1971, and here Shayna interprets it like a folk song with a bluesy undertone and customarily it grows towards the end. “The producer, Matt Pierson, actually chose that one for me, and I liked it.”

  Coulda Had Me is another big-voiced, empowering ballad, and it is followed by a swinging, jazzy rendition of Fiona Apple’s Grammy-nominated song, Paper Bag. Hyde Park is a pretty smooth serenade. “I wrote it in Hyde Park, London.” On the contrary, Wear Me Down is a raucous rocky scorcher featuring the pedal steel guitarist Robert Randolph. “I had a chance to play with him live at a blues festival in Switzerland, Rapperswil – a super nice guy. He’s on the new Beyoncé album, Cowboy Carter.” Robert is best known for his work in the gospel field. The concluding Teardrop once more grows from still to deafening thunder with rock guitar licks.

  Main musicians on this enjoyable set include Christian McBride and Marcus Miller on bass, Eric Harland on drums, Errol Cooney and Robin Macatangay on guitar, Bashiri Johnson on percussion and David Cook, who also did the arrangements, on piano and organ.

WATCH ME FLY

  Shayna’s third album, Watch Me Fly, was released in April 2019, but first in Germany. “I recorded it in New York. It was a German label that approached me, so I left Ropeadope and went with them. It was released in the U.S., but there wasn’t really a big push. The US distributor was The Orchard, but the business side of it in the US was not very well organized. The person, who was supposed to be in charge of the US stuff, I had to let him go. In the music industry you can’t trust people too much. They just tell you things. I’ve gotten smarter as the years go by, but I really have to take control.”

  “This was released in 2019, and I was in the middle of touring, when Covid happened – so everything kind of went up in smoke. When I put an album out, I won’t come to Europe until six months – a year later, because I tour the US first. I was in the middle of the European tour, when Covid happened. I was in Switzerland, and I had to leave.”

  Produced by David Cook, the six new songs were mainly written by Shayna and David. Among the four outside songs there’s That’s What Love Will Make You Do, a bluesy funk that Little Milton cut for Stax in 1972. “David chose that one.” David’s arrangement introduces a busy organ and Shayna exposes her improvisation skills, especially in the grand finale. Rod Temperton wrote and Michael Jackson recorded in 1982 a disco track called Baby Be Mine. “We picked that together.” Similarly to the song above, David’s arrangement differs a lot from the original. With a jazzy fast backing, also this version is vocally quite improvised.

  In the movie Calamity Jane Doris Day sang Secret Love in 1953, and Shayna’s mid-tempo version of the song flows gently and easily. David plays the piano solo. “I do that live in the show. It’s one of my favourite arrangements.” Big Mama Thornton released Life Goes On in 1966 on Galaxy, and – as expected – David has added boost into it and turned it into a powerful soul delivery.

  Kamilah Marshall is the co-writer on two songs: a snappy jogger called Be and the almost gospely Treat Me Good, which sounds like it has a big choir singing on it. “That was me, Crystal Hall, Freedom Breiner, Michael Flowers and Justin Johnston. We tripled it, so it sounds like 12-15 people.” Shayna and Michael League of the Snarky Puppy fame wrote the quick-tempo Shadow and Watch Me Fly is another sprinter, a rocky dancer. Wash Me Over is again a fast beater with a rocky backing, whereas the concluding Home is a slow and peaceful, gently flowing ballad. “It tells about Mississippi and my family. They are all still there. I’m the only one that left.”

  The musicians on Watch Me Fly are the ones that Shayna is touring with these days: Al Street and Jeremy Most on guitar, Brian Cockerham on bass, Ross Pedersen on drums and David Cook on piano and keys. The music for the most part comprises of up-tempo songs with strong jazzy undertones. Spiced with strong rock influences, the songs often grow into big crescendos.

  “The album didn’t do well - not because it wasn’t good. The label didn’t do their job, neither in Germany, nor in the U.S. - and Covid happened.”

SOLOIST FOR SYMPHONIES

  In the summer of 2020 Shayna was accepted into Berklee’s Online Interdisciplinary Music Studies bachelor’s degree program. “When Covid happened, I wasn’t really inspired. Then I went back to school to finish my degree – and I’m still in school. It’ll be finished next year. After that I’ll still sing, but I’ve been doing a lot of teaching. I’m writing a text book. I’m going to create a syllabus based on what I teach. During 30 years I’ve learned a lot about how to be an independent solo artist, so I have a lot of knowledge to share with other musicians.”

  Shayna’s latest breakthrough is truly an interesting one: she does shows with symphony orchestras. “I’m a guest soloist with symphonies. I sing in front of them all kinds of music, including my own material. It’s fantastic. It can be blues, soul, my stuff… Now I’ve worked with over one hundred symphonies in North America - in Canada and the U.S. Now I’m negotiating with my first European symphony. I have an agent specifically for symphonies. Once I started, the word got around and I’m requested now. I sing with symphonies two or three times a month. There are a lot of symphonies in the world” (laughing).

  Among the symphony shows there are Nothin’ but the Blues featuring material from Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Billie Holiday and American Diva. “That’s my show. I wrote and produced American Diva with David and Jeff Tyzik. He did the orchestrations and David did the rhythm section. They just opened it a few months ago. The symphonies work in seasons, so they book the season like a year in advance, so right now I won’t be doing this again until the ’25-’26 season.”

Photo courtesy of Marjo Parjanen

GOLD DUST

  During the Covid period Shayna started writing material for her next album, which was released in April 2023, and now she’s back with the Ropeadope Records. “Basically, a great thing about Ropeadope is that they still keep control of how things roll out. They do all of the paper work. I don’t like paper work” (laughing).

  Produced by David Cook, Gold Dust was recorded at the Bunker in Brooklyn NY. “It’s a great studio. A lot of great jazz records have been recorded there.” Among the ten tracks there are four songs that are familiar from the past. The opener, Ray Charles’ I Believe to My Soul (1959) has undergone a rebirth and has now manifested as a full-sound, swinging stormer with heavy horns and a heavy rock guitar solo. “I like Ray Charles a lot. He’s great.” Radiohead’s Faust Arp (2007) is transformed from a calm interlude and classical piece into a downbeat jazzy number, where Philip Dizack does a trumpet solo. “It was presented to me, and I said ‘that’s cool, let’s do that.’”

  Steve Nicks’ Gold Dust Woman appeared first on Fleetwood Mac’s album Rumours in 1977 and now we can listen to it disguised as a loud and heavy rocker. Cole Porter wrote You’d Be So Nice to Come Home to in 1943, and here the pure jazz arrangement has turned it into a whirlwind. Donny McCaslin does the exciting tenor sax solo on it. “I really love the arrangement.”

  Goodbye is a pretty but melancholic ballad and Behind Closed Doors is equally misty and atmospheric. It’s actually a duet with Sachal Vasandani. “Sachal is a great jazz singer.” Rick Hinman is on pedal steel on the story-telling The Bloodline. The song is based on Shayna’s essay on how through trauma we somehow find joy, even after the George Floyd incident. “I really love that song.”

  A ballad named January grows from a peaceful beginning to a customary grand finale, whereas The First Time I Saw You is like a mellow show song, with David’s piano solo in it. The speed on the concluding A Perfect Frame increases towards the end. Altogether Gold Dust is an entertaining and versatile album, and artistically rewarding. The music is leaning on rock on a couple of tracks, but this time there are basic ballads as well; and jazz, of course. On at least four tracks we can enjoy the familiar structure of from quiet to stormy. And big thanks for the real instruments!

  The musicians on Gold Dust are practically the same as Shayna’s current touring band, the OG Band. “OG means Original Gangster.” Shayna, who incidentally has run two marathons and eight half-marathons (“but I haven’t done that lately”), still lists her own favourites today: “Ledisi – she’s like a mentor. I’ve known her for a long time; Veronica Swift – we’re really good friends. All my friends are very talented” (laughing); “Shosana Bean, Morgan James, Chaka Khan, Erykah Badu; of the artists that are no longer alive Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Nancy Wilson; from jazz Domi and JD Beck and Becca Stevens.”

  Although this was Shayna’s first visit to Finland, she has performed all over the world and has toured Europe over ten times by now. “I still want to go to Japan. I feel good that it will happen next year. I’d also like to go to Soul, South Korea.”

  “My other future plans are keep making records. I’d like to make a record with strings, since I’m doing all these symphonies, so I’m writing for that now. Obviously, my text book, my college syllabus, to finish school, to graduate and maybe later a Master’s degree – learning and growing and writing.”

  “I had a musician friend saying ‘releasing music in this day and age is like pouring a bottle of water into the ocean.’ It doesn’t make a difference. It doesn’t make a ripple effect. So I put out music, because I love it. I love performing and make people happy, and if they want to buy and support – great! If I’m able to tell the story and be authentic in my performance, then I’m happy.”

THE EP & ALBUM DISCOGRAPHY

SHAYNA STEELE (2004)

You Are My Soul / So In 2 U / Dying / Whatever You Do / High Yella / Movin’ On

I’LL BE ANYTHING (Highyella Lowbrown Records) 2009

Alright / Wishing / Without A Care / 4AM Song / You Didn’t / 25 Hrs / Kiss That Girl / Right On Time / What Are We Giving / So Real / Different This Time / We’ve Already Been Here Before

RISE (Ropeadope Records, RAD-261) 2015

I Got You / Sunshine Girl / Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy / Can’t Let You Go / Gone Under / I Will Be Love / Grandma’s Hands / Coulda Had Me / Paper Bag / Hyde Park / Wear Me Down / Bonus: Teardrop

WATCH ME FLY (Membran/Must Have 234498) 2019

Be / That’s What Love Will Make You Do / Baby Be Mine / Treat Me Good / Shadow / Watch Me Fly / Secret Love / Life Goes On / Wash Me Over / Home

GOLD DUST (Ropeadope) 2023

I Believe To My Soul / Goodbye / Faust Arp / Behind Closed Doors / Gold Dust Woman / The Bloodline / You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To / January / The First Time I Saw You / A Perfect Frame

………..

https://shaynasteele.com

(Interview conducted on April 18, 2024; acknowledgements to Shayna Steele, Hannah, April Jazz: Matti Lappalainen and Pedro Herrero).

© Heikki Suosalo