This weekend brings two terrific soul and R&B performers to Honolulu. Oleta Adams and Jody Watley both had their breakout moments in the ’80s, but neither has rested on her laurels.
Adams, whose ringing vocals and soulful approach keep fans enthralled, also plays piano, with a recent album to tour behind.
Watley, who broke ground with her melding of hip-hop and R&B, comes to Hawaii with an “unplugged” show.
ADAMS, WHO performs today and Friday at Blue Note Hawaii, is best known for her contribution to the 1988 Tears for Fears hit “Woman in Chains,” where her clear, bright vocals brought reflection and melancholy to a song about a woman oppressed by a man who himself is struggling.
While that song and the work that followed propelled Adams to international fame — several of her songs hit the top of the charts in the UK — her story is one of a small-town girl, raised primarily in Yakima, a small town in central Washington state, whose talent was nurtured and developed by a series of chance meetings.
“I played for four choirs for my great uncle’s church, and that’s where I learned to play and sing,” she said. “I met a teacher in high school who introduced me to classical music, and I studied as a lyric soprano with her and sang in her choirs.”
That teacher, Lee Farrell, had trained at the famed Juilliard School in New York and would eventually become Adams’ manager, steering her towards pop and jazz to use a rich “chest voice” rather than go for the higher-pitched, classical repertoire that Adams initially wanted to study.
“She taught me how to read music, and write music, and dress, and basically she was my mentor,” Adams said. “Coming from a small place, we really climbed up that mountain. … I’m glad that before she died I was able to take her to the Grammys.”
Adams would be nominated for four Grammys — with 1992’s “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” and the 1991 Gulf War ode “Get Here” being two of the most memorable — but they would be a long time coming. She had been playing for 17 years in a hotel in Kansas City, Mo., when she got noticed by Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, founders of Tears for Fears, one of the more intriguing of the synth pop bands of the day.
Tears for Fears were not the first to take notice, however. Many artists had taken an interest in her voice and career.
“The first group that tried (to help) was the group Yes. And George Benson tried for about three years to get me signed to Warner Brothers Jazz,” Adams said. “James Taylor was very kind and encouraging, saying ‘Just hang in there.’”
Adams still lives in Kansas City, finding it convenient for her career and enjoying being “a big fish in a little pond.”
Given her long career playing for hotel guests, her repertoire now is eclectic, her style varied.
Adams’ latest album, 2017’s “Third Set,” comprises tunes she would often perform, played with her own unique twist. Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind,” about as folky a tune as one could image, opens with a drum solo and has a country slide-guitar accompaniment.
“In our shows, we take quite a ride,” she said. “I love versatility.”
WATLEY HAS known stardom since childhood, when she was first brought on stage by her godfather, the great R&B singer Jackie Wilson, and then began appearing as a dancer on television’s “Soul Train” as a 14-year-old. She appears on Saturday for two shows at the Blue Note.
Producer Don Cornelius put Watley in the trio Shalamar, which produced a string of funky dance tunes in the early 1980s. Songs like “A Night to Remember” put her brassy, sassy attitude on full display — the video of the song has her flirting with two men in a hotel room and a bar.
Artistic and financial disagreements broke the group apart, sending Watley off to Europe for a few years. Upon her return, she released an eponymous solo album that featured six of her own songs. Full of funk and fun, with clean, snappy tunes like the hit single “Looking for a New Love,” the album won her the 1987 Grammy for Best New Artist. More importantly, it set her on a course of independence and currency that has marked her career path ever since.
“As long as you’re living, you should be trying try to live life and enjoy it, number one, but also not be stagnant and continue with your experiences,” she said.
Watley has became a cultural pacesetter beyond just singing and dancing, mixing couture fashion unabashadly with vintage clothing in her photo shoots.
She looks at artists like Rihanna now, making statements in music, fashion and lifestyle, and feels like “a proud big sister.”
For her ground-breaking 1987 song “Friends,” Watley mixed sung vocals with an extended rap section, performed by hip-hop duo Eric B & Rakim. “I had this idea about a song about people backstabbing you and trying to bring you down,” she said. “Rakim’s voice, in my mind, was the only one who could do it.”
Her record company, MCA, was initially “really opposed to it,” she said, but when she insisted, wanted Will Smith to do it. “Will Smith, before he got into acting, was a huge rap star, very commercial, summertime, fun music,” Watley said. “I said that doesn’t fit the vibe of the song. Rakim will give it the edge it needs.”
Seven minutes long in its entirety, the song helped lay the groundwork for what is now a commonplace blend of rap with soul and R&B.
For her shows at Blue Note, Watley has also created something brand new — an all-acoustic program, with guitar and piano backing, minus the electronics and synth-pop that some might associate with her sound.
She’s done individual songs acoustically before, but this will be the first complete show.
“I thought it would be really cool to do a totally unplugged concert and to be able to share stories behind some of my big hits, some of my hits from Shalamar, some of the new music and some of the influences that I had as an artist growing up,” she said.
SOUL SINGERS AT THE BLUE NOTE
>> Where: Blue Note Hawaii
>> When: 6:30 and 9 p.m. today and Friday (Oleta Adams), 6:30 and 9 p.m. Saturday (Jody Watley Unplugged)
>> Cost: $35-$55 (Oleta Adams), $35-$45 (Jody Watley Unplugged)
>> Info: 777-4890, bluenotehawaii.com
