March 18, 2006
Interviewed by Shannon West


Pamela Williams is celebrating her 10th year as a recording artist with the release of her new CD, Elixir, and a live DVD, A Night With The Saxtress. She was a seasoned musician and performer long before her debut album, Saxtress, climbed the smooth jazz charts. Growing up in Philadelphia, she played in school ensembles and gigged in bands on weekends. Barely into college, she auditioned for Patti LaBelle's backup band and found herself touring with one of our biggest stars. A gifted painter, she earned a degree in Fine Arts and continues to paint and exhibit her work when she's not in the studio or on the road. She recently moved from L.A. to Atlanta. We had a wonderful conversation a few days after Elixir was released, both of us at our respective homes with cats in laps, kids playing in the background, and a cold rainy day outside.

SmoothViews (SV): What is it about Philadelphia? You grew up there, along with Grover, of course, Gerald Veasley, and the guys from Pieces of a Dream. It seems some of our best and most respected musicians come out of that scene.
Pamela Williams (PW): It's something about the vibe with the music in that city. I know that when I was a very young musician just listening to the music on the radio was such an influence for me. With Philadelphia International records being based there, you got so many entertainers coming there to record; the O'Jays, Teddy Pendergrass, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes.  It was a hotbed for music so you got exposed to some great R&B and some great jazz.

SV: So the heyday of Philadelphia International wasn't before you were old enough to be listening? (laughs)
PW: No, actually it wasn't. (laughs) I was very young, though. But I can remember a lot of those old songs coming out of Philadelphia.

SV:  Growing up with all that music, when did you start to realize you wanted to play it?
PW: I can distinctly remember this one incident.  I had an uncle who played drums, and I remember going to a set that he did with his band. I was about nine or ten years old, and I remember being so blown away. They were playing things like covers of George Benson, and I just fell in love with it.  I had grown up listening to R&B, but jazz was something that, when I was exposed to it, I went "Oooh.. I like this too!"  It's instrumental, but it still grooves, and it's funky and nice to listen to.   I think at that moment I realized I really wanted to be a musician.

SV: Were you playing before then?
PW: I wasn't. When I got into high school I ended up playing the clarinet. Which I didn't want to play (laughs).

SV: How'd you end up playing clarinet?
PW: I was young, and  I didn't realize that Benny Goodman was so cool on clarinet and that people did play jazz on clarinet.  I wanted to play funk and rock and R&B and you don't hear a lot of clarinet in the music I was into.

SV: I've talked to a few musicians who started out on instruments they didn't want to play. They joined the band at school and got assigned an instrument, or their parents started them in lessons on one that wasn't their personal choice.
PW: That's what happened. When I was in ninth grade they needed musicians to join the band and what they needed was clarinet players. I'd wanted to be a musician, so I thought that was my opportunity.  I wasn't really happy about that, but that was my way into the band, so that's what I played.

SV: How long did you stick with that?
PW: I had to play it all the way through high school, but I begged the musical director for a saxophone. He kinda hooked me on clarinet when he told me the saxophone is really similar, and if you can play one you can play the other. I took the clarinet home and learned to play it, and he said in 10th grade he'd give me a sax. I fell in love with the saxophone!  When I got a chance to get my hands on one, I just played it every day.

SV:  You played in high school jazz bands with some really proficient musicians, didn't you?
PW: I did. Pieces of a Dream was our rhythm section. I did get to play sax in the jazz bands by then.  I was still playing clarinet in marching band and concert band.

SV: Did you start performing back then? Did you know you were going to end up being a performer?
PW: I think I did. I think it was always my dream to be onstage.  I would go to concerts and just be blown away by bands and think it was the most incredible feeling.  That it must be wonderful to be onstage and make people feel that way. I wanted to do that.

SV: When did you start performing?
PW: I started playing in bands after school while I was still in high school. We started to get some club gigs in Philadelphia. We started getting steady gigs on weekends. I did that for awhile, and I met someone who knew Patti LaBelle.   I was starting to do demos by then, and I had done a demo for her assistant musical director. He was producing some artists, and he had me come over to play a session.  A few months later, he called me and told me Patti LaBelle was looking for a sax player.  They were looking for a female musician, and he thought I would be perfect! I was like, "you gotta be kidding! Patti LaBelle!"  I got the audition, and I couldn't believe it. I was on a high for about three months!

SV: So you were still really young?
PW: Yeah. I was in college when I got that audition.  Touring with her was such an incredible experience.   I was on such a high... to be onstage with her!  I got a chance to go all over the world with her.  Actually, my first gig with her was in Japan.

SV: It had to be incredible with her musicianship and showmanship and her ability to just reach out and grab people by the heart.
PW: She really does.  Before I was in her band I went to her concerts, and it felt like she would just grab your heart out of your chest and take you to another level.  It was such a powerful thing.  I'd say that there are a lot of things that I've probably adapted on stage that I got from watching Patti.

SV: What were some of the things you brought from that?
PW: Patti is totally honest, and she doesn't pretend.  That's the thing that audiences really like... when they can see that you are human.  Like when you make a mistake or have technical problems, you have to just joke about it and work with it.  The audience understands.   I think the more honest you are, the more you connect.   I love going out into the crowd.  Even if they don't know who you are, when you go out into the audience and establish that connection, the whole mood changes and people get into it.

SV: What was it like to be onstage with Patti, in the center of that energy and the connection she has with the audience?
PW: Some nights you'd feel drained after the show because you were on such a spiritual high onstage with her.  You'd feel like you were at some kind of revival.   Just to see her effect on the audience.  People in the audience would be crying.  Sometimes we would be too, just from being a part of that.  It was an incredible experience.  Those were some of the most exciting times in my musical career.

SV: I've wondered about that, because if I'm in the audience and a musician is doing this to me... where it's almost an out-of-body thing, and sometimes you can feel everybody else in the crowd going there with you... what would it be like to be in that, to be a part of what is causing that!
PW: That's a good way to describe it.  It is like an out-of-body experience, and that's the beauty of all of it.  Eveyone in the room is connected.  Strangers are connected to each other.  You just feel so good you want to reach over and shake the other person's hand.  I think that's what's beautiful about music...  how it brings people together at concerts, and there is this positive energy in the air.  I thought, "What a healing thing!"  

SV: You've worked with some high energy artists. You even got to be onstage with Prince didn't you.
PW: I did something in the studio with him, and he got onstage with Patti's band once.  I am such a big fan.  I don't even think I could concentrate.  I was so mesmerized by him being actually onstage, and I'm onstage with him.  What an incredible musician!

SV: He's one that a lot of us grew up with, too.  A lot of times in our little smooth jazz world they tell us that it's all about relaxation, and there is so much more to it for people to get into.
PW: That direction that contemporary jazz went into when it came to toning you down, always bothered me.  I've been told that the tone that I have is "too hard" for the format.

SV: I always thought your CDs were such a perfect balance.  You had some pretty ballads, some funk and some songs where you cut loose, so everything didn't sound just alike.
PW: People can hear one track from your CD and not be into that particular sound, and you could have nine or ten other tracks on there that were a different sound that might be great for them, but they don't get a chance to hear it.  I remember a long time ago going to radio stations for interviews, and the DJs could pick what they played, and you didn't have that thing about the tone having to be a certain way.  If it was groovin', and it had a nice feel to it, then people played it.  It might be uptempo, or it might be a ballad.  Now we get told that people want to hear it softer, more mellow and not so blaring.  It's hard to not play that way on certain tracks.

SV: Your first one on Shanachie was Perfect Love, and "Destined to Be" was an uptempo song that made a lot of top ten lists for that year. And you obviously didn't hold back on "Sexy MF!"
PW: I have my tracks where I'm not holding back.   I'm just going to blow.  Then I'll do the smooth stuff too, because I want my stuff to be played on the radio, and people enjoy it.  They enjoy both styles.

SV: Tell me about Grover Washington Jr. and his influence on your music.
PW: Oh Yeah!  Grover Washington is probably the real reason I play saxophone.  When I heard "Mr. Magic," it just knocked me out.  I had never really heard jazz played like this before.  It was almost like it was R&B.  Growing up listening to R&B, it was even a stronger influence than jazz, because I was listening to all those old school groups.   So when I heard Grover Washington play this funky track that was on the radio along with Earth Wind and Fire and all those groups, I was blown away.  I knew that was how I wanted to play and that I would buy all his records and listen to how he played and play along with them.  That's really how I learned.  I never really had lessons.

SV: You're pretty much self-taught? Or should I say "Grover-taught?"
PW: I am.  In the school ensembles we read sheet music, but aside from what they taught in class and practice, the teachers and musical directors would tell you to go home and practice, that you had to do that work on your own time. My way of practicing was to put on Grover Washington songs and copy them.

SV: And he ended up calling you up and telling you he had been watching your career...
PW: To hear him say that! My saxophone idol! At the time he called me, I was on the road with Patti.  I knew Grover's keyboard player because we went to school together.   We were staying in a hotel down the street from a hotel where Grover was going to be performing.  My friend knew I was in town with Patti's band, and he got my number and called me.  He said he was there with Grover and invited me to come hang out.  Then he put Grover on the phone.  I was saying, "You don't understand.  I just really love you!  You've been like my saxophone God!"   And he said, "You know what, Pam? I've been watching your career, and I'm really proud of you.  I think you're going to go a long way."  Just to hear him say that really made my night.  So then he said, "Why don't you come over and bring your sax, and you can sit in with me."

SV: Wow! How did that make you feel?
PW: I couldn't believe it was happening.  I was actually going to go to sit in with Grover Washington.   So he calls me out on my favorite song, the one I learned on, which was "Mister Magic."  I felt like a little kid!    I'll never forget that moment.  If there was a book of incredible highlights of your life, that is one of the biggest ones.

SV: That is so "dream come true."   It's like it was orchestrated to inspire you and keep you going.
PW: It was.  You know how things work out really strangely, how things are connected and seem to be kinda accidental, but then when you think about the connection, you feel like things happen for a reason and they are connected?   I actually ended up with a record deal based on that one night.  His bass player, Gerald Veasley, already had a deal with Heads Up.  This was just totally spontaneous. I happened to be down the street from where Grover was playing, his bass player was on this label that was looking for a sax player.  All these pieces of the puzzle ended up coming together.

SV: You went into the studio after years of playing live and having all the energy that comes from the rest of the band and the audience.  What was that like?
PW: It was a challenging thing for me, particularly being a female musician.  Prior to that I had demos out.   I was trying to get a record deal, but I got told that nobody was taking the idea of a female sax player seriously.  I think when I got on the label they were realizing this was a great marketing edge. This was happening around the time Candy Dulfer had her first hit, but there weren't a lot of high pofile women sax players.  Going into the studio was different for me.  I always watned to go solo, and that's why I had quit Patti's band.  It was a hard thing to do, but I knew if I stayed there, I was afraid I would get really content there and never move out of that little safety zone.  It's scary, and it was discouraging at first.  Some of the music that I had to play was kinda not me, but as a new artist you don't get a lot of creative control from record companies.

SV: I don't even think established artists do these days.
PW: In a lot of scenarios you have to sort of fight for that.  The studio for me was a whole different game.  I was so used to playing live that I had become a great live musician, but this was night and day.  And there were songs that I wanted to do because I had been playing them live and the audiences really responded to them, but the record company people wouldn't hear them, or felt like they wouldn't work on radio.  So in the studio, it was a matter of toning down and having a set amount of time to work with.  It felt much more restricted.  It took me a while to get used to it.

SV: You did your first album when the face of the music was changing and toning down became the big thing.  It had to be hard for you, since all these changes were new to both artists and radio people. Were you working live with other musicians in the studio or were you laying down tracks and in there by yourself a lot?
PW: I was by myself. I'd get in the booth and wonder how I was going to get that same passion that I got onstage looking out at people.  There are things you play onstage that you never will play in the studio, and some of the things you play live, you wonder how you come up with that.  It's something you get from the audience, it's an energy exchange that propels you forward.  To try to get that in the studio where it's silent...?

SV: How did you get that?
PW: It was hard.  I remember not being happy with some of the way songs came out in the studio on my first recordings.  There were some that came out well, but there were a lot of things I wanted to do over or do differently.

SV: There was almost a four year gap between your second and third releases.
PW: I parted with my label, and I was doing the third record on my own.  I had my own studio, and I wanted more creative control.

SV: You leap and hope the net is there. The liner notes on Evolution allude to you going through some challenges in the process.
PW: I was doing the record myself. I didn't have a lot of money.  I didn't have a label or distribution for it.  At the end of it, it took me three years and a lot of my own money.  I got investors.  I should have seen it through to the end and gotten a distribution deal, but I had done the CD, and I wanted it to be out.  There was an independent label willing to release it, so I jumped on the first offer that came along, and that didn't work out.

SV: That has happened to so many artists, especially at that time when labels were being started by people who didn't necessarily have the experience to be able to deal with the way the music business was changing, or everything that releasing and marketing music entailed.   A lot of them were going under.  It had to be really tough on you when you had so much heart and sweat equity invested in that music.
PW: I was happy to see that CD in the store, because it started out just me in my studio, and I was out there doing it blindly.  I was just going to do it based on faith.  Seeing it in the wrapper and in the store was really something for me. Then there were the business issues.  Of all the projects I had done, I wanted this one to go well because it was my baby.  I always tell people to take care, learn all you can, and be patient enough to make sound choices.  I've been through quite a journey with all this stuff, and now I'm on Shanachie Records.

SV: How did that come about? You had to be pretty demoralized after the situation with Evolution.
PW: I was thinking that I was through with the record industry.  I was approached by somebody who said the label was interested in me.  I felt like it would be a foot in the door, that I would have records out again and be able to get airplay and live gigs.  So I decided to do it.  I have to say that I have had the most creative control, and I've been happy with the projects I've done for them.

SV: They hooked you up with Kim Waters, and you did some amazing collaborations with him.  What was it like working with him?
PW: It was great! Kim was fun to work with. We really jelled in the studio. It was like hanging out and having a little party, but we were working.  He’s incredible!  He’s a great producer and a great keyboard player too.

SV: You've been doing a lot of work with David Mann over your last three CDs, even more so on the new one.  He's another "best-kept secret" player who has never been as high profile as he deserves to be.
PW: I fell in love with his production, and what an incredible sax player!  I'm always asking him why he isn't just out there.  He said he shines in the background and likes the production end of it.

SV: So you like to shine onstage and he likes to shine in the studio, there's a balance there.
PW: I like both ends of it now.  I think you become really seasoned after a while in the studio and know what it entails. It's been a learning experience being on Shanachie and being around great producers like Kim Waters and David Mann. They write such good stuff for me, because they are horn players themselves.  It's so easy to play their stuff.

SV: When you're in that room with people like Kim Waters and David Mann, it's gotta be more fun. You've been getting more deeply involved in the production end too, haven't you?
PW: I produced seven of the tracks on the new one.

SV: It doesn't really sound like it, but reading the liner notes, Elixir is more pared down. There's a smaller core group of instrumentalists with you.
PW: I played most of the stuff myself.  It's mostly me and David Mann on this one, and we had some other musicians on keyboard and guitar for several songs.

SV: Out of all the songs you could cover, how did you end up picking "Gimme What You Got?"
PW: Because it's always been one of my favorite Al Jarreau songs.  From the first time I heard it, I just fell in love with that track, and the lyrics just knock me out!  I didn't plan on doing it, but one night I was listening to it and thinking about how much I loved it and how the melody would sound really nice on the saxophone.  It's such a beautiful track, so I decided to just do it.  That whole album was a classic.  It doesn't get any better than that!

SV: In your liner notes you dedicated this CD to your life-partner, Precious. The way it comes across is simply that this is the person you love, and you are dedicating the CD to her... the way everyone else dedicates their albums to their loved ones... more than it being a big "hey, I'm gay!" deal.  You dedicated Sweet Saxations to her, too, but didn't clarify what your relationship was.
PW: I was gearing up for it, huh? (laughs) When I am doing interviews, people are always asking me about getting married or being married, so I felt like it was a good time to be totally free and just be totally honest with everyone about who I'm with, and why I'm not getting married in the traditional sense.  It wasn't anything I felt pressured to do. I feel like we live in a world where people are not accepted because they are different, and I think it's OK to be different. It's OK to love who you love.  We should be allowed to feel totally free in saying that this is the person that I spend my life with.  This is who I am with when I go through my day-to-day life and my day-to-day struggles.

SV: Did you feel like you had to cover that up before?
PW: I think every artist is a little nervous at first, because you don't want people to be alienated.  You don't want fans to feel like they aren't going to buy your music because the fantasy they had of you being a certain way is not that way at all.  I think in the end, it doesn't affect who you are as an artist.  I remember when KD Lang came out.  She was in country music, which is so conservative, and back then there were less artists taking that step, and she continued to do well, maybe even better after she said, "This is who I am."  I didn't want to live a life that was a front.  I didn't really hide it before, but I didn't talk about it, and when interviewers would ask about my relationships, I would just kind of lead the conversation somewhere else.   It's a scary step.  I thought about it a lot, and this felt like the right time to do it.  When I did the CD liner notes, I just put my feelings on paper.  Then when I did the first interview after that, the marriage question came up, and I couldn't handle it like I usually did, because my true feelings were right there on the liner notes

SV: So how did you handle it?
PW: It was the very last question, and he goes, "I have to ask you just one more thing." We'd covered everything I could think of musically and career wise, so this has got to be something personal.  As soon as he asked me, I just said, "Well actually, I'm gay."  And he said, "Oh. I didn't know that!"  He was very encouraging.  I think people will mostly see that interview or the liner notes and go, "Oh, she's just getting around to saying it."

SV: Fans and media people have been really supportive of the artists who do take this step.  It's a brave and honest thing to do.  And now you can go out and hold hands with your sweetie just like everyone else does.  If you love somebody who loves you back, you are so blessed.  You should be able to celebrate it. Elixir was just released this week.  What is ahead for you?
PW: I've got some promotional things to do and some shows coming up in May.

SV: Are you going to do some touring behind the new CD.
PW: I would love to!  I need to get some people to call me for work! (laughs)

SV: The single is already doing well on the charts.   Congratulations on that!  The CD just is in the store, so now everyone can hear your new stuff, and I'm sure we'll be able to see you in concert soon!


Visit Pam's website: www.PamelaWilliamsTheSaxtress.com, and be sure to click on the Art Gallery link to view some of her paintings.

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