We have become interested in a young black woman singer named Deniece Williams. We have become interested in her because she sings in a soft, sexy voice. It is a voice we haven’t heard from young black women singers since the early sixties, when young black women singers sang in groups. We first heard Deniece Williams on the car radio. She was singing a song called “Free.” She sang, “But I just got to be me, free, free-ee-ee.” She sang most of the song in a clear soprano. Then, when she got to the “free-ee-ee” part, she shifted her voice upward—way, way up. It seemed effortless, and completely cool.
We saw Deniece Williams the other day. She was in town performing in a concert at the Felt Forum, where she was billed third in a lineup of four acts. We visited her in her dressing room shortly before she went onstage. A few friends and aides were with her. She wore a tight-fitting aqua-blue satin jump suit and gray satin platform shoes. She told us that
she is from Gary, Indiana; that she has been living in Los Angeles for the last four years; that she has been singing since she was five; that she started singing in church; that when she was seventeen years old she had a job as a salesgirl in a record store, would sing along with the records, and began to think of singing professionally; that years ago she recorded two singles for a label called Toddlin’ Town; that she sang backup for Stevie Wonder for three years; and that she now writes all the songs she sings.
As she told us these things, she mixed some hot water, lemon juice, and honey in a cup. Then she went into the bathroom and closed the door. From where we were, we could hear her sing in her upper register, “God is truly amazing.” She sang this over and over, sometimes stretching out and emphasizing the word “amazing.” Then she sang some la-la-la-las in the upper register. When she came out of the bathroom, she said “Yuk.”
Half an hour before she was due onstage, her road manager told her that, because of scheduling confusion, she would have to go on second and could do only a twenty-minute set, instead of thirty-five, as she had expected.
“Only twenty minutes?” she asked.
“Only twenty minutes,” he said. “What are you going to drop?”
“I guess I’ll drop ‘Slip Away’ and the encore,” she said.
After he left, she said, “I only got twenty minutes. I don’t care. I’m not going to feel bad about it. Nothing is going to make me feel bad tonight.”
Her band—five young men and a young woman, who was the backup singer—came in, and she told them what songs they would be doing. She said, “We’ll do ‘It’s Important to Me,’ not stopping but straight into ‘That’s What Friends Are For,’ and then I stop and talk a little, and then we do’ ’Cause You Love Me, Baby,’ ‘If You Don’t Believe,’ and ‘Free,’ and that’s it.” She asked all the people in the room except the members of the band to leave, so that she and the band could pray before they went onstage. The songs she sang onstage were not as familiar to us as “Free,” but then she sang that, too, and it was even better than listening to it on the car radio.
—April 4, 1976