Shakin' Down with... SANDRA WRIGHT by Colin Dilnot Reprinted from Issue 32 of In the Basement magazine. Copyright 2003 by In the Basement.   Used by permission.

"If you read the back of the Wounded Woman album you'd think I'd died or gave up singing. Neither of them is true. If you are out of sight, you are out of mind. What they don't know, they make up!" Well, we can bring you the real story of Sandra Wright, as told me last year by the lady herself...

"I was born in Memphis and I don't mind telling you my age. I am actually 53!" This was how Sandra began her story at the time. (She was born on October 1, 1948) "I don't have any brothers and sisters and my father died when I was two. My mother died when I was twenty-three. I had a few cousins in music but I had a very quiet childhood. I was raised in the church. I had to go to church every Sunday regardless - there was no excuse other than death! My mother ensured that you got up, got dressed and went to church." Sandra lived in the Dixie Homes in North Memphis and went to the Carnes Elementary School. Her family church was St. Paul Missionary Baptist.

Sandra indicated the importance of music in her upbringing... "My cousin, my mother's sister's son, had a gospel group called the Spirit of Memphis Quartet and they were singers. My famous cousin was Memphis Slim. All of my mother's sisters were singers when they were younger and it just rubbed off and has been in and around our family for years. We have always revolved around music in our house one way or another."

She continued: "I remember, as a kid, I used to get my butt whupped when I visited my aunt, because they would be in the den playing blues tunes and my cousin's records and everybody would be in the party. It seemed like so much fun. We had to go to bed but I would get all the cousins up and I would be the singer and they would be my audience. I would be standing there singing, not noticing that the den door had opened. I would be singing and I just happened to notice that there was a light and a silhouette. I turned around and there was my uncle! I got a whupping and sent back to bed and this happened every other Christmas or every time we got together... for being 'Miss Prissy'!"

Sandra told of how she eventually got to meet her famous cousin for the first time when she was an adult... "I only remember him because of the music and my cousins and aunts. He used to send recordings to Uncle Peter Chapman - his father - and we used to go over to his house. When we used to go over to my aunt Dorothy's house, they used to play them all the time and it was so much fun. The first and only time I got to meet him was as a grown person. He came to see me at the Era Club in Nashville a year or two before he died." When Sandra saw him in the audience, she thought it was her Uncle Peter. "I thought, it can't be him, because he had passed away." When she got off stage, they introduced themselves and she was thrilled when he told her he thought she had a great voice.

Sandra soon discovered music all around her and not just in her home. She said: "When I was about eight or nine years old, W.C. Handy was still alive. Every summer they used to block off Beale Street and some of the merchants used to pull out barrel grill and sell ribs and chicken. W.C. would have all his old cronies come in who he would be playing with on the road. I saw everybody and I thought 'that's what I want to do' up to that time. Then I saw Ma Rainey being wheeled out on stage in her wheelchair to play the piano and sing. At that particular time, I thought 'these people are making this little old lady work' and that was the only thing I could think of-- 'How cruel could they be!' Now, at this age, I think 'tape a microphone to my hand and wheel me out and glue my feet to the stage'! I want to be there until I'm ninety-nine if I've still got a voice. I can now understand where Ma was coming from."

Sandra continued her reminiscences... "I knew the Five Blind Boys, the Dixie Hummingbirds and even remember, when I was younger, Sam Cooke singing with them. They used to rehearse at one of those guy's mother's houses in the backyard in the summertime. I saw him once but didn't know who he was, because I was a kid and I didn't know who he was until later when he was famous - and I was still a kid!"

Sandra explained how music shaped her life... "I, being 'Miss Know It All', used to organise the kids in the neighbourhood and we had a choir when I was six or seven. My mother thought music would keep me safe; she was a domestic and we lived in the projects. To keep me out of trouble, she would make me take voice and piano lessons. One day, I didn't know why, the choirmaster was very up on me and he called my mother in. I thought she was being called up because I was being too loud. I told myself 'my mom's coming up and my life is over!' but he told her 'Do you realise she can sing?'. He actually told my mother that she should get me lessons, so I took voice lessons from kindergarten on."

She joined the church choir, became a youth soloist and, with some friends in the youth choir, organised a little gospel group to sing in competitions in local churches, which they would consistently win. "We used to throw down," she said. "We used to have the church going, with everyone shouting and standing on the chairs praising the Lord and everything else. When you are a young kid, you think that was great and even my mum would be crying."

Sandra related how music started to become more important to her when she went to Manassas Junior High. She got a coach and started taking vocal and piano lessons. She also tried some organ lessons but she said: "I couldn't get the foot pedals. I had no co-ordination between my feet and my hands. I'm not a great dancer either - I'm not even a good dancer! As Bill Cosby used to say on the TV, I'm a great chair dancer." She was in the school choir at Manassas and began studying opera. She also started doing concerts with her vocal coach and pianist and described how tough her coach was... "He was the hardest task-master. He used to make me hold my notes and, while still breathing in and out, he used to hit me in the stomach and shout 'Hold it!'. He was awful but it paid off because, at one of the recitals, he was supposed to turn the page and go on with the song but he dropped the sheet music and I had to hold the note until he was able to pick it up and then turn. Whooooo! I was never sure whether it was an accident or deliberate. That's how tough he was with me."

Asked whether any of her Manassas High School classmates became famous musicians or singers, she cited Harvey Thompson (who was a Bar-Kays member) as an example. Years later, she met him again at a gig where they were both performing. She recalled her surprise at seeing him again: "He was so quiet and, years later, I was playing some kind of gig in Kentucky. The Bar-Kays were there and I kept looking at this guy. I was like 'I know that guy' but he recognised me before I did. He recognised me out loud and I didn't want to say anything because he was part of the Bar-Kays. He said 'Sandra Wright!' His hair was blond and he looked nothing like he did in high school. Oh my God! There was also another guy called Butler. He was an albino and a hell of a good keyboard player, who ended up playing with lots of cats in the area and was on Stax albums."

Sandra graduated in 1966 and went to Tennessee State University [TSU] to study music, with the hope of becoming an opera singer. She said she was very shy around this time and that she had to be dared by her roommates to enter a talent show on the campus.   "I went down there to the audition and I asked my roommates 'what do I get if I go?'. They said 'we'll take you down to the local tavern and get you a beer.   I went down there because they followed me to make sure I did it." (Sweet) Charles Sherrell was a member of the backing band... "I met Charles through one of his cousins who was attending TSU. At that time, Hank Crawford was in his senior year and his project was to conduct the band for the talent show."

She decided to sing the theme from the film 'Valley of the Dolls', which had been recorded by Dionne Warwick. "I did that for the audition and for the show but it took a while," she said. "I had never sang before in front of a non-Christian audience and they literally had to push me out onto the stage. I just stood there. One of my roommates was backstage with me and was one of the people who pushed me out. My other roommates were sitting in the audience. I was just standing there and this guy said 'what's that fat girl gonna do? Is she going to sing or what?'. They kept playing the intro and I couldn't get it together. Charles Sherrell was playing and walking about and he took the neck of his guitar and hit me in the back. I took a breath and, vroom, I started to sing and won the stupid thing. It was one thing to sing for a church audience where they are not going to boo you but it's another thing singing to a college crowd who have nothing to lose by booing you. I won that year and the next but I never entered one again."

Despite her initial reticence, Sandra was soon involved with an R&B band - the Canned Souls - which led to her first recording. Once again, it was a dare from her roommates that formed the catalyst, as it was their urging that caused her to go to an audition the group had organised. She said: "This was an all-white band and there were these cute little girls [who went to audition]. At that time in this country it was unheard of to have an all-white band and a black female singer. It was not the most comfortable feeling. There were all these white girls in the hall and they were like 'who's she?'. I know I am a fuller figure and I thought 'I know I am not going to do my best, because this is not going to work'. I went in and, when they played a song I liked, they did the audition. I was getting ready to leave the hall and they said 'you have to sit down there and wait!' and I'm 'okay, I'll wait five minutes'. They came back out of their room and they said to the others 'all you girls can go' and, to me, 'you are staying, we want you'. And it blew me away!"

Sandra remembered that audition was in 1967, before most of the group were called up for the Vietnam War. She did get to tour with them for quite a while however and, at the same time, she also had a girl group with Joe Tex, for whom they used to do back up. Of her group experiences, she said: "It taught me that, with back-up singers, some of them get involved with the band and then that gets to be a big mess on stage! And I said 'I am going to be the only female and I am not having this'. I don't mix business with pleasure. My time is my time and the stage is for the audience and not my business. I want to give all my time to my audience so I don't want to clutter it up with personal baggage."

She recalled recording a couple of times with Joe Tex and she went out on the road (with him) while the other girls were still in college. The recordings were done in Memphis and, although the titles were not recounted, this probably means Sandra was on Joe's Soul Country album.

She continued to work with Canned Souls... "So, from then on, it came down the pipe and it was traveling and running around with these guys. It was kind of tedious in Tennessee. I couldn't use the bathroom in the filling stations and I couldn't stay at some of the hotels, so it was hard but I did it any way. I did do a recording with the Canned Souls on Decca Records called 'Unbelievable'. I was singing lead on that and it was in the regular old R&B style. It actually made the 'Cashbox' 'Pick of the Week'." Sandra's deal for her one Coral 45 - 'Gotta See My Baby' c/w ' We're Gonna Make It' (# 762559, 1969) - arose from the Canned Souls' session. She explained: "I got the deal when they moved it to Coral. They thought they could make money off me. I had nothing to do with that, it was up to the record company I have never had any say-so where they switch me or put me." The recordings were supervised by Bergen White and Norris Wilson... "I did the recordings in Nashville on Music Row somewhere. Back then, they just had numbers and I can't remember whether it had a specific name - third one on the second block. We went in there and laid out some tunes and Decca took them. They were the only recordings I did at that time because after, a lot of the Canned Souls guys got drafted."

Though Sandra was more than dabbling in R&B, she still aspired to be an opera singer. "I wanted to be one of the top divas at the Metropolitan," she said, "but Mary Anderson and others had that covered. I thought I'd wait my turn and I got propositioned by the National Black Opera Company to go to Europe. But my mother wouldn't sign the papers and let me go, because I was an only child and [to her] I would be stuck in a foreign country. It was a brief week, with me trying to get messages to my mom and try to sing. When you get your hopes up and they get dashed you try to forget it but I really wanted to go."

Nevertheless, she continued to study with her opera coach, Dr. Eddie Goins. "I did a concert - arias for my grade from 'Madame Butterfly' and I was in the choir. In fact, he put me behind the choir because my voice was too big. I started out in the centre and then up to the top, so they put me on the side. I had to stand three feet behind the choir if I was joining in something choral and walk to the microphone if I had a solo because I killed a few old crystal ones! I never recorded any opera but I wish I had."

After her disappointment of not being an opera singer, she began to realise that R&B was 'more instant'. As she explained: "So, after the Canned Souls, it was instant gratification if you know what I mean. As performers, that's what we looked for and that's what I decided I wanted to do, instead of waiting two days in an opera!"

After graduating from college - she majored in music from TSU - Sandra stayed in Nashville. "I started to sing in and around the Nashville area," she said, "and the one club everyone went to and liked was the New Era Club. They sent out a scout and they got me. I met a lot of people down at the Era - one of the Neville Brothers used to work with me, Cyril. I got a chance to meet a lot of great people. I knew Earl Gaines, Clifford Curry, Roscoe Shelton, Freddie North, Jimmy Church, Johnny Jones, Al Garner, Freddie Waters... I used to love Freddie, he was my kind of little guy. I liked him a lot. The last time I was in Nashville was the last time I saw him - about 10 years ago. He was a great singer. I knew Ted Jarrett, we used to hang out together and I actually recorded for him - on T-Jaye [in 1986]. Fred turned me on to Ted for the recordings. Even though they had their country & western thing in Nashville, we had our own little clique. It was really cool.

"I was in the Era Club for seventeen or eighteen years. I used to sing all the top ten songs and R&B - all the top forty, no originals. Su Bridgeforth was the owner. He had a house band we all worked together. I got to go back for his birthday last year and met all the old guys who used to work for him from New Orleans. We used to play down there; we had a great time down there."

During her time in Nashville, Sandra was married. "Yes, I got married. One good thing about the marriage was the baby - the marriage was not! I kept my baby and got rid of my husband!" She laughed. "I think I came out on the better end of the deal - the joy of my life, my son, Christopher."

Asked how she hooked up with producer, David Johnson, for the recordings made for Broadway Productions in Sheffield, Alabama, Sandra related: "There were not that many black clubs in Nashville that had live music and the Era was the only black-owned club that provided live music. It stayed that way for years. Freddie North used to come down there from time to time and I got to know him and talk to him. He was a very sweet guy and he said that he wanted to introduce me to his friend, David Johnson - and that's what he did. He came in one night and we did our show and I heard from him about a couple of weeks later. I told Freddie about it and he said 'go for it, that's a good deal'.

"I went to down to Sheffield on a Sunday and came back on a Friday, because I was still working at the club at the weekend. I got there Sunday and went into the studio Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and part of Thursday. I remember that it was the week that they had the big tornado down there. Then I went back down there a month later to put some final little touches on everything and clear up some tracks. David had compiled a lot of songs for me to listen to and I chose the ones that I liked that spoke to me. So the ones on the 'Wounded Woman' album were the ones I really liked. They played tapes to me - they had some instrumentals and some with vocals with demo singers [possibly including Frank Johnson] because I only had a week to learn them. I never got to meet any those guys like Terry Woodford and Frank Johnson because, when I got there, they had already had the basic music laid down. The only thing that was done live was the horns, the guitar and bass and that was it. The background singers were put in later and I don't know who they were. On 'Midnight Affair', I sang it the way I felt it and they changed the whole thing round after I recorded it. They had played it the way it was done originally, so they had to change the style of it. The keyboards and horns weren't there."

David Johnson's liner notes to the Demon UK release of the 'Wounded Woman' album - its first time seeing the light of day in full in 1988 - relate the initial moves taken in placing the product. Several New York-based labels expressed interest, although Brunswick would not pay the money he felt it merited unless he also agreed to include producing an album on Jackie Wilson in the deal. Eventually, Johnson settled for somewhere nearer home and alighted on Stax, expecting an issue on the company's main label. Eventually, a call from Stax boss, Jim Stewart, told him that 'Wounded Woman' would first be issued as a 45 and that it would launch the Truth label, basically a successor to the company's Gospel Truth imprint. [Truth 3201, 1974, c/w 'Midnight Affair'] However, after a second 45 - 'Lovin' You, Lovin' Me' c/w 'Please Don't Say Goodbye', Truth 3220, 1975 - the chance of the actual album release got caught in the troubles Stax was having in 1975 and the deal David Johnson had agreed fell apart.

From Sandra's perspective... "We got through it and David said 'we got a deal with the Stax people'. And we know what happened there! He didn't know that they had dropped me, that the IRS had come and stopped everything. I never heard my album again until someone told me that Aretha Franklin had put out an album with all the songs I had done. I didn't believe it until someone brought me the album. I went 'well, I'll be darned', because she did them exactly the way I'd done them. She did 'Sha-La Bandit' and 'I'm Not Strong Enough To Love You Again'... She must have apparently liked my versions to sing them and put them out." (Sandra was unaware that Bill Coday had done a version of 'A Man Can't Be A Man (Without A Woman)'. "After the thing with Stax had fallen through, some of these writers who had written these songs must have decided to do them themselves," she added. She was fascinated to learn that 'I'll Come Running Back' was a dance floor favourite... "There were several songs which struck a chord with me and they just felt right. When you find that song that just feels right you give it your all. There are more than a few on there which really hit me because the lyrics spoke to me and I loved it. Everybody was there for that cut - the horns, etc., but I cannot remember who wrote that record." (Liners credit B. Fair.)

Sandra went on to say: "David Johnson was fun. He was a nice guy; very nice to me and it really hurt him when everything didn't go the way he thought it would. I felt sorry for him too because he had put a lot of effort into it and I wanted it to be successful, not only for myself but everyone." However, she was not aware that David Johnson had tried a deal with Columbia, stating in his liner notes; "I got a budget from CBS Records to cut three sides on [Sandra] immediately after Stax went out of business, with the option to do an album. She would not come in to record." From Sandra's point of view: "They never made me privy to this," adding "I made no money out of [the recordings]. As far as I was concerned it was over when the IRS took it from Stax and I didn't think there was going to be anything left of it. I figured that was it and back of it."

She was not involved in the Demon release in 1988 and only found out about it by accident. She was very amused that the liners inferred that she had disappeared from the music scene and caused a few funny incidents when people had to check she was the Sandra Wright. "I was not involved nor did I know that it was issued," she said. "We were playing in Harpers Ferry in Boston. They were having a battle of the bands and my band was in it and this guy came up to me and said 'I have your album'. And I think 'this guy's drunk, oh yeah, right, a little too much to drink'. He told me that he had found it on vacation in Europe and bought it but I blew him out because I didn't believe him. The next time I heard about it was when we were in Toronto. We were there for the Blues and Jazz Festival and they asked me would I do a radio show in the Amusement Park where they hold the Festival. I was entering the cafeteria - that's where they had the radio - and, when I was being escorted into the building, I could hear this over the speakers. I was thinking that I have heard this song before. When I sat at the table where the dee-jay was, it finally dawned on me and he turned and said 'How do you like it that your album has finally been released?'. I then shout 'damn, that's me!' all over the radio. I apologised. I hadn't heard it in years - this was in 1989 - and I didn't believe it. What put the icing on the cake was that we played down in Atlanta and a gentleman from England was working in Atlanta and walked passed the marquee. He saw my name and the guys were unloading the van to set up and he said 'Is this THE Sandra Wright?' and they said 'yeah' and he said 'I've got her album' and they said 'right!'. He went to a hotel and got his friend to fax over three copies of the front and back of the album and I had to sign all three of them!

"That's how we found out that they had the album released in England and my bandleader contacted the company and they sent me a copy and I gave it to my son because he wanted something of his mother." She laughed at the thought that she had to seek out her own copy to hear her own music and continued, "then, we were playing at one of the night spots up here in Vermont [where she is now based]. Once again, the guys were loading the gear into the van. I was in the van and I was tired, because it had been twenty odd hours in the van and I was exhausted. I just wanted to get to the hotel and chill out a little bit and there was an English couple in the bar. When they found out it was me, they said they wanted to meet me and the guys said 'they've got your album'. So I went inside and I talked to them and they came back that night to see me. Who would have ever thought? I would never have thought that people would be trying to find it, to find me. There was a movie that came out just after we moved to Vermont in 1992 - out of England. My guitarist rented the video and he was watching the movie. It had this girl go inside her bedroom and in there were posters on her wall and there was a picture of me. They freeze-framed it and came to the band house and rewound it back and they said 'is that you?' and I said 'yeah, what am I doing there?'. I don't remember them ever having a poster. The movie company must have done it."

Sandra decided to turn her back on recording after her disappointing experiences with Truth... "I stayed away from the studios except to do background singing and doing commercials and stuff like that. I never had any faith in the recording industry anymore and I gave it up and kept on singing in the clubs until Teddy [Ted Jarrett] got a hold of me. He had been hounding me for years to come down to the studio. So, I was at the grocery store and bumped into him and I thought 'what the hell, I might as well' and I thought 'it won't go anywhere so go ahead and do it to shut him up'. And he still hounded me" she laughed. I did about three or four tunes with him but '(It's Love Baby) 24 Hours A Day' was the only one he issued. [T-Jaye TJ 787 - vocal/inst. - 1986.] It never came to anything."

Sandra continued her residency at the New Era throughout the seventies and eighties but found time to do other work, as she said... "I did some things with Kenny Rodgers - all country & western - plus a lot of demo work in the area. In the seventies, I sang lead on a Coca Cola commercial recorded in New York City. The girl that was working with the New Era band worked for an advertising agency and she recommended me. So I made a demo and they picked me and next thing I know I am off to New York. I was up in New York doing this with Gloria Gaynor - she was in the studio too before she struck out - and a saxophone player called Boogie Down Brown from New Orleans. We all did one each. It was a national advertisement and I received residuals for eight months until they stopped using it. I also did an Oprah Winfrey commercial for the San Francisco area and it won an award. It was the theme song itself not me that won, so I didn't get anything."

In 1986, Sandra joined the Nashville Minstrel Players and, in 1988, she performed her tribute to Bessie Smith - in the form of a one-woman play - at the Chattanooga Music Festival. By 1990, she was fronting another Nashville R&B band, Bordello. She did a video shot with Bordello for a record deal but never recorded with them but, of Bordello, she related: "A friend of mine, Moe Denham - I met him on road with Canned Souls and he kept in touch - came down to the New Era and he said that they were looking for a female artist to sing with them. I thought 'I'll come and see if they like me' and it was a nice time. They were an eight-piece band and we played different little spots around the scene during the week. We played a lot of blues... Aretha Franklin, Koko Taylor, Etta James, Betty Wright, B.B. King...

"The drummer for Bordello was also the drummer for Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Lloyd Herman. We became good friends and we were out one night to see a friend he had met in Europe with 'Gatemouth' called John Harris and who is my bass player now. John had just signed on to go to Europe with Delbert McClinton. Around about that time, Lloyd had persuaded 'Gate' to let me sing one number before he went on and 'Gate' took me on. I was on the road with him for about a year up until before the Gulf War broke out. He was preparing to go over there to play and that's when I drew the line and said 'no, I cannot do that'. The very next day after they landed back in the USA, the war broke out. With my luck, it would have been me stuck on the runway and couldn't have got out of there!'

After spending seventeen years in Nashville's New Era Club she decided it was time to move on. "I decided to get up and be gone"...

She started her Sandra Wright Band with John Harris on bass, Lloyd Herman drums and Pete Marriot on guitar. In 1990, they got a chance to record in New York for Xemu Records, which led to their relocating to Vermont. "When I started my band, that traveling back and forth to New York City was a little bit too strenuous," she said. "Twenty-two hours and they were expecting us to get in the studio, doing your thing and doing gigs to get there and getting back. So the best and the closest was Vermont. The people were nice to us and we didn't have to worry about renting a place. They found it and rented it to us and we have been here ever since. You see the beauty of the state - the seasonal changes... We lived in the projects when I was younger and, when I got older with my son, we first lived in the projects. I worked hard enough to get out of there and get our own apartment - still inner city - but, when I came up here, I noticed the beauty of the country. It looked like the hand of God up here. Everywhere you went, there was beauty - Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. We all fell in love with it and, during that time we were under contract with Xemu Records in New York, it was to our advantage to move here."

The Sandra Wright Band made their second album - Shake You Down - this time for Hipshake records and released in 1995 (some while after its recording)... "We were playing in this club in New Jersey called the Stanhope House and these producers from New York said that they would like to record us. We said 'sure' and we came to New York and stayed about a week and half there and laid it down. This was the BMG studios just before they stopped recording there in 1990. It was not released until four or five years later." The album consists of eleven tracks and includes a couple of covers - Al Green's 'Love And Happiness' and Ann Peebles' 'I Can't Stand The Rain', plus nine originals, some of which Sandra wrote with her band. This is their last recording to date but they have been working on a jazz album. "We usually play R&B," confirmed Sandra, "but we have changed gears and decided to do some jazz. I was brought up on jazz and blues. We have already started it, cleaning up the tapes and everything. Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington... all the old ballads, all the old tunes. I like the old stuff better; I like the standards and that's what I'll be covering. I do a little jazz show with some guys who I work with down here in my hometown. I played with this old guy, Jerry Jerome, who worked with Woody Herman and Duke Ellington. He had a holiday home nearby and used to drop in and he adopted us as his band. In the summertime, we play on this lake. We spend a lot of time in the summer all over three or four nights a week... Canada, New Hampshire, Maine, New York."

Sandra continues to play both R&B and jazz around the North-East States on a regular basis and the content on her 'Shake You Down' album proves that she would be very popular on the European blues festival scene. Let's hope one day...!

Interviews with Sandra Wright: 15 & 24 February, 2002

Acknowledgements: Sandra Wright, Lloyd Herman, David Johnson, Richard Skelly