Is it a perfect alignment of the stars that Atlantans will hear Lalah Hathaway perform the same day her live album is released ?
Yes it is, the two-time Grammy winner said.
“What’s funny is that the gig happened to be on the same day as the record came out, so it made total sense to make it into a big ol’ party,” Hathaway said during a telephone interview from Texas. “It worked out great. Atlanta is absolutely one of my favorite places to play. I’ve gotten a lot of support in Atlanta over the last 25 years.”
Hathaway will perform two sold-out shows Friday at Center Stage . She wasn't about to share the playlist, though, and chided a reporter for asking.
“Let it be a surprise,” she said. “People are so focused on knowing what the experience is before they even have the experience. Come to the show and see.”
That same day, she is releasing her seventh album, "Lalah Hathaway Live," which includes covers of Anita Baker's "Angel" and the iconic "Little Ghetto Boy" by her father, Donny Hathaway .
She said the only pressure in performing "Little Ghetto Boy" was the pressure she put on herself as the daughter of Donny Hathaway. She recorded the song earlier this year at the the historic Troubadour in Los Angeles , the same place where her father recorded part of his 1972 album, " Donny Hathaway Live."
Hathaway said she always knew that one day she would record that song, and the selection of that venue to record “Little Ghetto Boy” was really a no-brainer.
“It was like sacred space to me,” she said. “The experience was surreal. It was a full circle moment for me to be standing there are singing ‘Little Ghetto Boy.’ I had to keep reminding myself to just breathe.”
She recorded the song in the presence of her mother, Eulaulah Hathaway, who is a classically trained singer and met her late husband when both were students at Howard University.
The recording is particularly relevant today, Lalah Hathaway said, given accusations of excessive force by police and subsequent protests.
"It's not really about the little ghetto boys," she said. "It's really about all of us. There's young women being body-slammed into a desk. This song could be relevant 40 years ago or today or, most likely, 40 years from now. It has melody, harmony and rhythm, but the best thing about that song is the message."
In her music, Hathaway has found inspiration not only in her parents, but other performers such as Gladys Knight, Chaka Khan, Earth, Wind & Fire, Styx and Journey.
She clearly enjoys the live performing experience. In the studio, with all the technology, a performer can make a piece perfect. Performing live, though, “is so singular” and special, she said, that sometimes she feels it’s becoming a lost art.
Hathaway was a young child when her father died at age 33 in 1979, and she has said in previous interviews that she doesn't have many memories of him.
But, she said, “I feel I do my best to represent the legacy of my parents and what they stand for.”
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