René Marie pays homage to Eartha Kitt

Photo: Provided
By Elizabeth Pandolfi @girlseeksstory
May 21, 2014
At 58, René Marie has lived two separate lifetimes. One is her life as a world-renowned jazz vocalist, a saucy, brilliant, no-holds-barred singer who composes and acts. It's a life she started in her 40s, going from a complete unknown to an international award-winning, festival-headlining star in a matter of years.

This life is completely at odds with the one that came before. At age 18, Marie married her high school sweetheart, and they both became Jehovah's Witnesses. She was a mother of two five years later. And singing? That, along with her natural-born brazenness, was something she left behind when she married. "That was the end of the boldness for me," she says. "That lasted almost 25 years. Then I started singing again in the last few years of my marriage. It was the singing that got me in touch with who I was again."

And who she was, it turned out, was emphatically not a Jehovah's Witness. When her husband told her that she either had to quit singing or move out, she chose the latter, and left both him and her religion for good. Then she started singing as much as she could. Within a year, she'd left her day job.

But it took longer than that for her to shake off 23 years of living as a Witness. "For the first 20 years of my adult life I was very submissive," she says. "It took me about five years to come out of that mindset of being submissive to men — to really be able to stand up and own who I was, to change that behavior. After that, I was good to go."

That is an understatement. It's hard to describe just how free, confident, and joyfully herself Marie is. First, there's her look. Tall and fiercely feminine, Marie carries herself like a queen and wears her hair like a rebel, with a shaved head save for one small lock of hair in front. Her voice is a smooth, sleek, perfectly controlled powerhouse that can handle great leaps in pitch and has a huge emotional range. When she speaks, it's with a perfect ease that comes from being truly comfortable in one's own skin. Honesty is paramount, she says, both to her life and to her art. "When I left the Witnesses, one of the things I asked myself and still ask myself is am I being true to myself? I would rather say on my deathbed, 'I'm glad I did' rather than 'I wish I had.' That's like a touchstone for me ... as human beings, we are capable of huge about-faces. The biggest impediment is worrying about disappointing others."
Read more: http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/ren-marie-pays-homage-to-eartha-kitt/Content?oid=4924646At 58, René Marie has lived two separate lifetimes. One is her life as a world-renowned jazz vocalist, a saucy, brilliant, no-holds-barred singer who composes and acts. It's a life she started in her 40s, going from a complete unknown to an international award-winning, festival-headlining star in a matter of years.

This life is completely at odds with the one that came before. At age 18, Marie married her high school sweetheart, and they both became Jehovah's Witnesses. She was a mother of two five years later. And singing? That, along with her natural-born brazenness, was something she left behind when she married. "That was the end of the boldness for me," she says. "That lasted almost 25 years. Then I started singing again in the last few years of my marriage. It was the singing that got me in touch with who I was again."

And who she was, it turned out, was emphatically not a Jehovah's Witness. When her husband told her that she either had to quit singing or move out, she chose the latter, and left both him and her religion for good. Then she started singing as much as she could. Within a year, she'd left her day job.

But it took longer than that for her to shake off 23 years of living as a Witness. "For the first 20 years of my adult life I was very submissive," she says. "It took me about five years to come out of that mindset of being submissive to men — to really be able to stand up and own who I was, to change that behavior. After that, I was good to go."

That is an understatement. It's hard to describe just how free, confident, and joyfully herself Marie is. First, there's her look. Tall and fiercely feminine, Marie carries herself like a queen and wears her hair like a rebel, with a shaved head save for one small lock of hair in front. Her voice is a smooth, sleek, perfectly controlled powerhouse that can handle great leaps in pitch and has a huge emotional range. When she speaks, it's with a perfect ease that comes from being truly comfortable in one's own skin. Honesty is paramount, she says, both to her life and to her art. "When I left the Witnesses, one of the things I asked myself and still ask myself is am I being true to myself? I would rather say on my deathbed, 'I'm glad I did' rather than 'I wish I had.' That's like a touchstone for me ... as human beings, we are capable of huge about-faces. The biggest impediment is worrying about disappointing others."
Read more: http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/ren-marie-pays-homage-to-eartha-kitt/Content?oid=4924646

René Marie - Thanks,But I Don't Dance

I was born into a family of 9 in a very small town in Virginia. Music played a pivotal role in my life from the very beginning. It was at home that I learned the value of telling the story behind the music and how powerfully that story can move the listener and impact one's life. I learned how vital it is to convey emotion in the music by watching my father’s facial expressions and body language when he listened to music.

I had one year of formal piano lessons when I was nine years old and another year when I was 13. It was during those lessons that I learned to read music. The rest of my musical ability seemed to come to me naturally. For a brief time, as a teenager, I sang in a band at musical functions in my neighborhood. In this band was a pianist, a sixteen-year-old boy who would later become my husband. I composed and sang my first piece in the band when I was 15.

At the age of 18 my boyfriend and I joined a very strict religious group, got married and stopped performing in public - for good, it seemed. Four years later, I was a mother of two sons and found myself inculcating in them a love for music the same way my father had with me – by example. Many times we would sit together listening to music and I would ask them how did a certain song make them feel: Happy? Sad? Excited? Calm? Then I would ask them to stand up and show me what that would look like. Such were the 'games' we would play.

Many mornings I awakened them with Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man". Other times, we would 'dance' the story of Maurice Ravel's "Bolero". At night, I would compose lullabies for them, making up verses until they fell asleep.

I continued to play piano, compose, sing at home and eventually started giving piano lessons. Though my husband and I no longer performed in public, we were a very musical family, having friends over for food and conversation, but where music would be the centerpiece. My husband eventually learned to play five different instruments: trumpet, guitar, saxophone, flute, piano. Both sons sang and played several instruments between them. Occasionally, we would play together as a family.

In January 1996 I was 41 and working full-time at a bank when my oldest son convinced me to start singing again. After a big family discussion, it was decided that I should call a family friend and ask to sing with his quintet. He readily agreed and I started out singing one day a week in a smoky bar of a Ramada Inn for tips only. It would be several months before I actually earned any money.

However, by January 1997, my husband was displeased with the amount of time I was spending with music and told me to stop singing. I had promised him when I first started that if he ever wanted me to stop, I would. So, I did. I stopped singing for 3 months and they were a miserable 3 months. After months without singing in public, I begged, wheedled and cajoled my husband into "allowing" me to sing again. I promised him I would do whatever it took to "please" him, as long as I could sing.

He capitulated and I resumed singing with a ferocity I didn't know I had. So much so that, on the last day of 1997, when this time he issued the ultimatum that I either stop singing or he would force me to leave our home, rather than stop singing, I chose to leave after 23 years of marriage. 18 months later, I had divorced my husband, produced my first CD, quit my job at the bank and signed onto the MaxJazz label.

Between 2000 and 2004, I recorded four CDs on the MaxJazz label and have won several awards, both domestic and international, for those recordings. In 2005, I decided not to re-sign with MaxJazz, but to make my own way, call my own shots. In 2006, I decided not to re-sign with my booking agent, but to slow things down and work on a one-woman show.

In 2007, I released "Experiment In Truth".
I have never forgotten the early lessons learned about the power of music. Today, I try to imbue that feeling of emotion into every song I write – every song I sing – every time. I am very happy to be singing today.
Rene Marie.

Itinerary
January 28, 29
Dallas, TX
Regional premiere of "Slut Energy Theory - U'Dean"
The Black Academy of Arts and Letters
8:15pm
http://www.tbaal.org/cal-jan11.html

February 4
Charleston, SC
Spoleto Festival Annual Auction @ Memminger Auditorium
56 Beaufain Street, Charleston, SC 29401
8:00-8:30 & 9:45-10:30pm

February 11
Denver, CO
Dazzle Restaurant and Lounge
7pm & 9pm with Jeff Jenkins, Jim Bailey, Jill Fredericks, Greg Harris and Mark Simon