Leela James |
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Wed. July 06.2005 12:00 AM EDT |
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Leela James: Stay-At-Home SoulStrong new singer talks being a good witch and cookin' up soul food. by C. Bottomley |
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(Warner Bros.) |
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With Leela James, you have to keep changing your first impressions. She's a young lady in love with the sounds of old-school soul music. She's a petite woman with lots of vocal clout. And the Los Angeles native has a voice that sounds like it's spent
How long have you been wearing your hair like that? I started growing it out two years ago. My hair has pretty much always been either braided up or something that's really easy to maintain. One of my stylists wanted to play around with doing something different and I'm always open to whatever's funky and free and fly. It's easy to maintain. There's nothing to do. When was the first time you sang in a situation that wasn't church? I was in The Wiz at school. I was like the Good Witch or something. That was like my first little debut as an actor and singer. After that I continued to do more talent shows around school, and then just around the city. And then I got bit by the bug. Do you remember what you sang as the Good Witch? I don't even remember if she was the good witch. [Sings] "Sweet thing, let me tell you about the world and the way things are bound. You come from a different place and I know you traveled far. Now that you told me what it is, I better point you toward the Wiz. He's the Wiz and he lives in Oz." Sounds like a good witch to me. I had to do it just like that. I had the glitter all over my eyes and the wand. I was like in eighth grade at the time. When I first sang the song, you couldn't see my face. When I came out from behind the curtain they went "Oh my gosh!" Everyone was like, "You sound like a big old woman!" And I was even smaller then! You weren't always as deep into soul music and the blues as you are now. My father loves blues and gospel. When I was younger, that's all that I was hearing. In the morning, it was nothing but the Mighty Clouds of Joy. Some moments, you didn't want to hear that. I didn't appreciate what I was hearing at the time. But as I got older, I started finding I was into that same stuff. My father was really educating me without trying to educate me. Was there an artist who helped you open your ears? I heard Al Green probably more so than I heard any other singer, because everyone around me had his music. Whenever there were family functions or anyone sitting around the house, the same voice was always being played. I was like, "Who is this cat?" It was Al Green. I'm looking through these records one day and I see about ten Al Green records. I'm like, "Okay, I guess we like Al Green." On the single "Music" you lash out at contemporary R&B music. What's wrong with what you hear when you turn on the radio? R&B stands for rhythm and blues. When you think of R&B today, you don't even hear a lot of blues. It's time to offer people something else other than what they're force-fed on the radio. We forget about artists like Al Green because we don't hear them on the radio anymore. But yesterday you would hear all these different artists. Today you get like one or the other. I think it's time for us to get back to having a buffet. Do you ever feel like an old soul? Yeah. I'm not necessarily into doing things that I guess people do at my age. I guess it makes me feel like an old soul. I'm still young at heart, but I prefer to stay at home or cook or do something corny like crochet as opposed to going to the clubs. Most people are like, "Are you staying at home watching TV?" I'm like, "Yeah, Martha Stewart is on!" What was the last good tip you picked up from Martha Stewart? Martha Stewart makes cookies look so cute you don't want to eat them. So I was picking up how to make some little desserts, because I'm not really big on making desserts. What's your big specialty? Soul food. It's seasoned with extra spices that your mother or grandmother passed down to you. You could have some string beans, but when you put the soul seasoning on them, they taste a little bit different than regular string beans. You got collard greens; you got macaroni and cheese -- homemade baked macaroni and cheese, not the box. Yams and black eyed peas. Some hot water cornbread. I can whip any of that up. |
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