Jean DuShon recorded the ultimate club version of the classic 'Feeling Good'. I decided to see if I could track her down and find out the story behind this record, I had no idea that in tracking Jean down I'd find such an incredible story was there. When this interview was conducted over a year ago Jeans brother had passed away that very day, we caught her in a reflective and sentimental mood, Jean is a lady who is filled with laughter and recalls the smallest moments. I first heard this song through Dean Rudland and pals awesome Mod Jazz series, so it seemed fitting to ask Dean to write a few words as an introduction.
Ralph McKnight and Martin Lawrie, Sometime in early 2003
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Sometime
in the mid 80s, I was a really pretentious teenage mod. I decided
that although 60s soul and RnB were really great, jazz was way more
mod, and that I had better get into it. It’s almost certain
that I’d been reading too many Paul Weller interviews around
the time of the first Style Council album, and I’d definitely
been impressed by a copy of Colin McInnes’ ‘Absolute
Beginners’, whilst a Gerry Dammers interview in the Face,
where he espoused on the wonders of Paul Murphy and bossa nova may
finally have tipped the balance. Jean, you were born and raised in Detroit, what are your memories of Detroit? (laughs) “Erm, which memories? I have quite a few now! One of my memories was I lost both my parents at a young age, I liked to work in the church with my mother and sing in church, that’s when I started… when I heard the voices in church - the choir.” How old were you then? “Hmmm I’d say about 5.” 5 years old! And who were you listening to as a child growing up, beside gospel singers? “Dinah Washington was my favourite Helen Merril, trying to think… Billie, one of those people... Dinah Washington was my favourite. When did you turn onto rhythm n blues? “At what age, lemme see, I was listening to that early, but Dinah changed when I was about 13, 14 yrs, I liked jazz. I was listening mostly to Jazz like Miles Davis and all that stuff.” When you started singing were you singing jazz or blues or? “Hmmm, it was kind of rhythm n blues in a way cause that’s what everyone else was doing, and I got into blues, I really got into blues cause when I first started singing I started working in those chittlin joints those gut buckets they call them, and I was working alongside artists like T-Bone Walker, BB King and voices like that.” Didn’t you start singing in those clubs after you did the amateur thing? “Yeah I started in the amateur shows and then when I passed the amateur stage the clubs I started working in… well, I was a little old for my age or something, I was working these clubs where adults would work, it was at this time I met Berry Gordy, he was taking pictures in this club, he was a photographer, he and his sisters were there, they were selling cigarettes, I think Berry was taking pictures or something like that, that was the Flame Show Bar, I was singing alongside people like Dinah, Aretha, Aretha, Roy Hamilton, I remember him really well, he had a big band, the band were so great, Maurice King, Ziggy Johnson was the comedian. I mean everything was there. And then I started working a job in like the country, outside Detroit in the suburbs and places like that, and these were the clubs where people like T-Bone and BB and all these people worked out in the suburbs and hot Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Howlin’ Wolf, and I said “well I’ll be damned” and it was just really interesting. When I first met Dinah she was my inspiration, I used to try to imitate her, I thought I was singing myself imitating Dinah her but not in a way that she would think so, cause she came down into the theatre one time saying who is this person trying to be me? And that was me cause I was singing all of her songs and didn’t realise what I was doing. I was kind of embarrassed because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.” She was irritated? “Yeah, and right to this day I want to do my next album with her material.”  Image L to R: new in New York, Make Way For Jean DuShon, Studio Portrait, Feeling Good. What was it like growing up in Detroit, we hear the Motown stories where everybody was singing and there were so many groups, there was the amateur thing. Was this part of your experience or where you in your own world? “My own World” Growing up, I guess you didn’t know Smokey and Marvin, you met all these people later on after you got into showbiz? “Yeah I was so young, I started at the Flame Show Bar, I started singing at amateur shows at the Paradise Theatre, I used to go over there and get lynched, I used to get beat up, cause the people were so rough over there, that’s the thing with the amateur shows. Those are the things that I remember.” Bettye LaVette remembers that Detroit was very rough, she says that you hear all these wonderful stories about Motown people but she says that this town was filled with hustlers, prostitutes, pimps and drugs and all these horrible things, that the reality - it was raw! She lived in a different Detroit to the beautiful picture that the Motown people paint. “Like I said I started out so young, there were a lot of things happening in the clubs and things but I was always protected by my sisters and brothers who were raising me. I had 12 sisters and brothers, I just lost one today. My family was very close after my mother died, I wasn’t a wild person, I got married young but that was my choice, nobody could stop me from doing everything totally. I had a very nice family. My brother came out of the army to take care of me, boy I don’t know what war that was? (Korean) He took care of me, he watched every move I made, cause he wanted me to be somebody, a nice young lady, he wanted me to be a nice young girl. I had a sister that was younger than me and I would take her beatings and would have my behind whupped with a razor strap. And I used to have to go out to the tree and get switches from the tree so he could beat my behind, I never will forget that so long as I live. Have you reminded him of this since you’ve been an adult? “I don’t have to remind him… he know. I was passed from one sister, brother to the other.” What did they feel when all of a sudden here you are thrust into show business or appearing even as a teenager at the flame show bar and these other nightclubs in Detroit and then all of a sudden you’ve got a record contract, your on tour with famous people, then Broadway, what the hell did they think about that? “They didn’t think much, it all happened so fast, its like god took me by the hand, next thing I knew I was on stage, so many cute things happened to me, once I was up on stage at the Show Bar and my skirt fell off, I had a tunic and the bottom part fell off, I was working with Joe Williams once and he picked me up and my skirt split right down the behind. But that was nothing. Ever hear of a group called 8 mile road? That’s where I used to live, I was raised on 8 mile road where these kids lived in Detroit Michigan, Burndale Michigan and they had a club out there called Uncle Tom’s Cabin and I know I had no business in there but I used to put on my sisters clothes and go in there I was sneaky.” You mean singing? “Yeah, I would sit down at a table then get up and sing” Female artists can be notoriously dismissive of other female artists but you never had that, you and Etta James and Bettye LaVette you got on? “Yeah cause you know were just people, all under the same banner you know trying to make it whatever that is.” Dawn Hampton said “Jean DuShon gave me my first break in show business, she was so unselfish she had so many gigs of her own and couldn’t fill the obligations so she recommended me to substitute, it was the greatest thing that ever happened, it got me started”. “I never ever had animosity to any other any other female singer because life itself taught me that, some of the clubs I worked in were like a whore house, they were just like… different! And I was working in them with the rest of girls, I weren’t no different than they were and they were talented, they had all kind of talent in there, I mean talent in these places.” Yeah and in between you were always playing at other places like the Philharmonic Hall in New York, the great halls of show business. “Yeah” (laughter) So why did you move to New York? “I moved to New York cause I was running away from a marriage, my first marriage and I had done enough in Detroit, I needed to find stardom, it was time for me to move on, New York was the place for me to move onto, it was another place, another step. I didn’t even knew what was here – the clubs and things, I don’t feel that I took advantage of it like I should have, I don’t think I did as much as I should have done. I could have done so much more.” Your biggest mistake was to stop recording at the advent of disco, cause Etta was still recording and so was Sarah. “I didn’t decide to stop its just that I didn’t have anybody to help me do it I wanted to record.” You had some great breaks early on - hooking up with John Levy must have given you a strong platform to compete from. How did it feel to be catapulted into this world so early on? “Well like I said I was kind of catapulted at a very early age from amateur. Cause when I discovered that I could sing, I don’t remember how I discovered that, but it was a joy, it was a trip for me". When you started working with John he was working with the likes of Cannonball Adderley, George Shearing, Ramsey Lewis “Joe Williams! Yeah, Joe Williams and Nancy Wilson, all these famous people? “Yeah well after I started working with them they just welcomed me into the club. John Levy and Chuck Taylor his assistant, it was around that time, I had already married and had 2 children, I was ready to divorce that one and marry another one who was a great, great guy and at that time I was like any other young girl with great big hips and fine figure and all that stuff the way the girls are today, and could sing! This new husband thought so and he wanted to manage me, he wanted to do everything, and it was around the time that John Levy wanted to do it also. I don’t know how that happened but the two of them wanted to manage me, there was some competition and this kind of got on Levy’s nerves because at that time my husband had money and he would spend it buying me beautiful gowns and anything that he thought I needed for my career and that was getting to John a little bit. John was so great he had me doing so many things, he was such a great guy and still is to this day. He was one of my favourites.” He booked you in some incredible places “Yeah, he’s one of my favourite people” And when he met Nancy Wilson and she came into the picture things sort of changed? “Yeah cause I was working anyway, I was swinging, I was moving so he wasn’t that worried about me you know. As far as acting was concerned he thought I was crazy, he told me I’d never be an actress. And I said well I don’t know why you’d say something like that cause I was a natural born everything, everything I did - it was natural I didn’t try to go to acting school – I did go, I just everything but it was just something that looked like it was supposed to happen and did.” There was the controversy of you and Nancy and John, he was having problems with Nancy and he sued her or something like that and then he went to the newspapers and told everyone that he was going to make Jean DuShon a bigger star than Nancy Wilson? “Yeah, and then they made up and left for Hollywood! Left me holding the bag, whatever it was I was holding, but I went on I continued without him.” You then moved to New York and ended up working with all kinds of people? “Yeah, I never stopped, Ahmet Ertegun saw me at the Round Table, I was working at a nightclub, supper club over on the East side of New York. I was singing with Cootie Williams Band, Cootie was a trumpet player; I got up and sang, I always did it that way, just get up and sing and I got the gig. All I had to do was just sing Cootie latched onto me just like white on rice and I joined his band. Ahmet came to the round table and somehow he ended up signing me up. I have a picture of Ahmet signing the contract and my husband was with me. Ahmet took me over to Atlantic records and put me with Phil Spector and at the time I didn’t know what I was singing they wanted me to sing RnB or some kind of something and I wrote one tune that Phil Spector put in his album, Phil Spector didn’t do nothing for me but jive you know he didn’t do what I expected him to do.” But you did record with Phil Spector, it was your first Atlantic Record - “Talk To Me”? “Yeah and on the other side of that record is “Tired Of Trying” I guess by then I must have been tired of trying! After that I think that’s when I was with Fats Domino.” How did that come about? “Fats was working at Club Paradise, I think I had gotten a gig at Paradise and he came, I think I was working the lounge and he was playing the big room or something like that, that’s how some of those gigs came about. He asked me to join his band, I went on 61 nights with Fats Domino, I’d never been on tour like that. I’d been on tour with Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and the Motown revue before then. I don’t know how that happened I guess Berry. I wasn’t one of Berry's singers, I was just a Detroiter, and I got booked with Smokey Robinson, I remember the Apollo Theatre and the Howard Theatre a few other places. I’d recorded for ABC Paramount already. I know I sound like I’m rambling here, I’m definitely going back and forth.” You recorded for several labels including ABC Paramount, Lennox, Columbia Records where you did “Second Class Lover”? “Oh yeah, right, that was horrible too I didn’t like that, that’s when they had me singing this RnB whatever that was!” At Lennox it was more Lesley Gore girl group type stuff you did? “I had no idea who she was but I had to sing what they wanted me to sing, people coming up with material and I was just singing it. This tune that Connie Francis recorded, I covered that “Together” on ABC Paramount.” You sang that on the Motown Revue with Smokey standing backstage watching? “Yeah he was still married to Claudette at that time. We are all young and I thought I was very loveable.” What was it like working with Ramsey Lewis? “Oh he was a jewel, he was just beautiful, he Red Holt they were all like brothers, we just got along fine, I was much more mature, the Red Holt Trio decided they wanted me to share an album with them and that was my second album. The first one being Make Way For Jean DuShon and the third one being Feelin’ Good.” Feeling Good is popular in Europe, you see it all over the internet and they still play it in clubs. “Yeah? John Levy took that photo on the cover somewhere, I think in New York.” Who picked the material on that album? “I did, I picked most of it I was doing a lot then, working with Ramsey, Cannonball Adderly, Wes Montgommery, all those great people.” John Levy arranged the Chess deal? “Yeah.” Your cover version of the track Feelin Good is regarded in some camps as the definitive club version. “That’s a nice compliment, yeah, let me see, the arrangement and the people that worked with me, Oliver Nelson, he passed on shortly afterwards. Those were the best days of my life.” This session was recorded live with a live band in the studio? “Oh yeah, it was like oh yeah, it was like a gift from heaven for me cause I was so young and I was just a singer. John Levy got some of the best people in the world to do that Feeling Good album with me, I mean, Clark Terry, Jimmy Jones, Tito whatever his name, Billy Wright… they all did my tracks, I had Kenny Burrell, I mean everybody was on that date. Those musicians were the greats” How did the success of Feelin Good change your life? “I was al ways famous, Make Way for Jean DuShon made me famous, they’re still playin’ it. Feeling Good made me famous in Europe though, but “Make Way” made me famous in Detriot.” John arranged for you the way he had for Nancy, Nat King Cole, Dakota Staton and Peggy Lee to record with George Shearing? “Well, George Shearing I met and I think I was supposed to record with him.” You recorded a couple of tunes with him but they never came out! “Yeah, it’s a funny thing I was listening to some stuff I got in my apartment that is very old and I ran across Lover Man, and thought Oooh that sounds good to me!” You mean a recording? “Yeah” That you did with Shearing? “I believe so, I don’t even remember doing it. It was with strings.”  Image L to R: with Oliver Nelson, Studio Portrait, On Stage O k lets talk about For Once In My Life, you recorded this after Feeling good? “Yeah, because I needed to make another hit record. I went to Detroit and Ron Miller had written for Once In My Life with Orlando Murden, he invited me to his home because Make Way had been so hot and it was poppin’ in Detroit! I thought it was time to find new material, and so I met Ron, I was probably doing a gig in Detroit at the Lounge or one of those places and Ron came and was so excited over my sound and he said “Jean I have a tune for you and I know that you can do it”. He took me to his house and he was so excited cause he kept modulating the song, going up a half a step that’s when my voice started shakin’ I guess, I mean I was very emotional with it. That record was released and before I knew it everybody else was jumping on it” But your record company didn’t promote it? “No I don’t know what happened?” But it was picked as the spotlight record of the week at WXYZ at Detroit – a big hit of the week? “You think I can still sue them?” (laughter) But your record company dropped the ball, “It was a very big disappointment in my life.” Especially when Stevie covered it? “Oh God was that ever, Frank Sinatra recorded it too. I stopped singing it cause I didn’t have the song, I didn’t have anything, it wasn’t mine anymore. And then I wasn’t getting any work I wasn’t getting anything. This business can be cruel, you know and you don’t know why. I was always a young innocent girl.” But in 1971 you did go on to record on Brother McDuff's Lp the Fourth Dimension, how did that happen? “Ahhh Jack was my neighbour, he lived upstairs so he just wanted to take advantage that we were neighbours and that I could sing so he decided that he wanted me to sing with him.” After Jack McDuff you recorded with Roy Ayers and Eugene McDaniel, “Oh yeah, where are these guys?” I don’t know where they are but you recorded 6 or 8 recording with them “Yeah” And you have the recordings? “Yeah” And you own the recordings? “Yeah” You paid for the sessions, everything? “I sure did” And these were never released to the public? “No!” In the show Little Dreamer, a story of Bessie Smith's life, you took over the role played by Odetta, how did you feel stepping into her shoes? “I just stepped in them” Did you see here performance? “No, I just went out to work, just like any other gig, and it was soooo good, you know. “ You had great critical reviews for that performance; I mean they really loved you! “I have been so blessed, and I’m not bragging but this is just something that has happened to me. And, I have been so blessed in everything that I have attempted to do. You know, I want to sing again, but after I came back I don’t know what happened this last time when I went to Europe, when I came back to New York” Well when you went over to Europe in ’91 and you sang for King Hussein of Jordan? “oh yeah, that was nice” I mean you really haven’t stopped, it’s just that things have been sporadic, you sang for princess Grace of Monico, you sang for president of the united states and Mrs Clinton at the inaugural gala? “Oh, yeah, he blew his horn, I sang “my funny valentine” with him blowin’ his saxophone” that was a great, he is one of the sweetest persons I’ve ever met and she is too, You worked with BB King “Oh yeah, I worked with BB King” You worked with Marvin Gaye “Yeah, oh yeah, you see I worked with BB King on SOUL!, a tv show called SOUL!” You worked with Count Basie at the New Jersey Jazz Festival “Oh yeah” And you worked with Miles Davis at Birdland “Oh yeah, oh yeah, those were the days” All these people? Ray Charles at the Village Gate! “Oh yeah” All these great people that you have worked with? “I gave somebody my resume the other day and they just looked at me and were staring at me, I guess I never got excited about it at all, they were looking at me like I was some new face I said why are you looking at me like that? And he just said I can’t believe you know that you did all this” You played Fillmore East with Little Richard Fats Domino the Marvelettes Dionne Warwick, all these people, you were doing soap operas? “Yeah I was on Another World, Search For Tomorrow and all those other things I was doing. You know I was doing all these things inbetween gigs cause that’s the way this business is… do what you can do but do what you do.” Your gig in Las Vegas with Fats Domino, that was a big smash? “Oh yeah, oh fats, if I could find, I have tried to call him but you know” He’s still down there, hes still down south, “Oh if you could find him on the internet, any kind of way… oh” He’s got a site on the internet! “I love Fats Domino... Fats Domino!” People don’t know that you sang with Lloyd Prices band? “Lloyd Price swooped me right up, Lloyd had a club on Broadway I think… he took over Birdland, I sung there but I think I sang with him before that or something but whatever, I don’t know.” The really good story was when you were at Birdland with Miles Davis and Dinah showed up with that blonde wig? “I didn’t know what that was with that big wig, she had a BIG WIG! And she turned around and you couldn’t see if she was black or white, all you could see was this big blonde wig, scared the hell outta me. I couldn’t believe it.” After all these years there she is glaring at you! “After all these years, and she always had that look and that look is enough to scare the heck outta you. Like what are you staring at me for?” So she’s in the audience and you are performing at Birdland? “Yeah, and she’s sitting there but I loved her, the reason why I loved her was I didn’t know that she had influenced me so, all I knew was I loved her and I loved the way that she sang a lyric, I loved the way that she interpreted a song. You know and she was my inspiration, and when I worked at this theatre… I don’t know what was the name of this theatre in Washington, and she was headlining and I was just on the bill at maybe the amateur show or something, and she came down to the dressing room with her husband and all her headrag on and said who is this person trying to sing my song, sing like me? And it was me.” Do you think your future will lie in acting? “My future lies in acting and singing, if somebody wants to record me… this is the last go ‘round.” Did you ever come across Nina? “I never, I don’t think I ever worked with her, I may have, maybe maybe once? I used to hear her at Birdland and I think it was a club across the street from where I lived called the Club Baron, I think she used to work over there sometimes, but I always thought that she was a great lady, I always liked her, I don’t know if that’s where I got “Don’t Explain” from or Billy Holliday when I recorded it.” So onto some of your theatre, you had just finished Bubbling Brown Sugar in Paris France and you got a call from the producers of Blues In the Night, what happened?” “Well, they wanted me to come back home to New York, I think Ruth Brown had injured her leg or something had happened, it was no problem, I just stepped right into the role. I sang the blues, see its whatever it is you can do, if you can do it, then do it and I could sing the blues, I could sing gospel, I could sing anything but disco, I couldn’t get with that cause I hadn’t made it up in my mind that what I wanted to do.” So the show had been rehearsed it was ready to open in 3 weeks then Ruth had her accident, so you jumped on the plane? “Yeah, it was fabulous.” So on the first night what happened, do you remember anything after singing Wasted Life Blues? “Was that the first night? That couldn’t have been the first night? It may have been… oh god yeah! That’s something I can never forget fell asleep on the stage and, I think what happened was that I was suffering from jet lag or something, I was so tired by the time the show opened, I was just exhausted and I had this one tune in the show that Bessie recorded and wrote, Wasted Life Blues, that’s one of my favourite songs. After I got through singing that, I mean I was performing it and the whole bit, looking through my scrapbook talkin’ ‘bout my life and how it had just deteriorated, you know, went down the drain and I started going down the drain with it ‘cause I was so tired I was believing it and fell asleep. I woke up cause somebody Leslie Uggams and Debbie Shapiro they were coming to the centre of the stage cause we were supposed to be doing a song together. Leslies song was “Nobody Knows You When Your down And Out” and she told me “I was getting ready to point right straight at you” cause I was layin’ up there snoring! A house full of people, and my big ol’ soft house slippers on and my big flannel nightgown… shit I was gone!” The funny thing was when it opened, that opening night, it opened to rave reviews, especially your performance! (*Laughter all round) “All those top writers, the top New York critics, they loved me.” All that hoopin and hollerin and yelling you did it was so wonderful, what a performance! “And I felt soooo good. I felt so good.” Many many thanks to Ralph for helping to make the interview possible and for his incredible knowledge of Jean and her career, many thanks to the living legend Jean DuShon, even if she hated making the fantastic 'Second Class Lover'! And also a very big thank you to Dean Rudland, a master of knowledge and taste for bringing some credibility to this shocking website! Dean's compilations and re-issue 45's can be found on BGP Records www.acerecords.co.uk |
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