STATEN ISLAND, NY -- Sometimes, it’s not just about who sings a particular song, but who hears it.
“We do ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ which of course is the Sam Cooke tune,” says jazz singer Natalie Douglas. “That’s a tune Sam Cook wrote in the ‘60s after he heard ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ for the first time. He had no idea who had written it, and didn’t know anything about Bob Dylan, and thought that it really specifically spoke to his experience as a black man, and some of the struggles and challenges that he had dealt with.”
Douglas is brimming with these kinds of musical anecdotes, and as a skilled cabaret performer, she will likely be sharing plenty more when she celebrates Black History Month March 19 with a benefit for the people of Haiti at Lorenzo’s Cabaret in Bloomfield (editor's note: this performance was rescheduled from Feb. 26 due to weather-related issues).
“Music can sometimes really get a message to us,” says Douglas. “The lyrics of course tell a story, but the music itself can, too.”
With seven MAC (Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs) Awards, two acclaimed albums, and a vocal of class and subtlety, Douglas is an excellent vessel for that music. Not only has she played celebrated Manhattan spots like the Birdland, Douglas has also studied carefully the musical and social fabric of New York City. A few years ago, the singer did a program about Café Society, the city’s first night club where the official policy and goal was integration of both musicians and audience.
At Lorenzo’s, she’ll draw from a century of music. But don’t expect her to trot out the hits of other musicians just because they share the same skin tone. When she was working in piano bars earlier in her career, Douglas would sometimes get a set of requests for songs performed exclusively by other African-American singers. She got it often enough that she coined the phrase “Wrong Black Girl” — her humorous response to those requests.
For a woman the “Daily News” called “a sensuous and stirring singer with a sound that’s all her own,” Douglas deserves more credit.
So don’t think of Douglas’s performance as some lecture on race relations. She says her story about Sam Cooke and Bob Dylan is just one of many examples of history shared by all Americans, and really all human beings. That’s doubtless part of why Lorenzo’s ticket proceeds will go to benefit Doctors Without Borders in Haiti (note: over $250,000 was raised by Hilton owners Lois and Richard Nicotra for Hurricane Katrina victims in 2005).
“I want people to know that the evening is also fun,” says Douglas. “I love the cross-section between popular culture and history. I love bringing that to people in a way that hopefully feels immediate and fresh and real. It happened before, but it informs where we are now, who we are now — and what we’re going to do next.”