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Singer uses dramatic past, soulful voice to connect

By Dan Craft
dcraft@pantagraph.com

"Listen, I'm the one you're gonna want in the foxhole with you," advises Janiva Magness, one of the headliners for this weekend's Seventh Annual Nothin' But the Blues Festival.

Not that there are going to be many foxholes to jump into on the Tri-Lakes grounds in Bloomington, mind you.

But after spending an hour talking about her battle-scarred life and times, you know something? Yep, she'd come in handy should you ever find yourself in a foxhole -- wherever, whenever.

Since she recently returned from the first-ever blues tour behind the lines in Iraq, she knows whereof she speaks: Janiva and her fellow blues travelers spent part of their 10 days with the Bluzapalooza Tour clad in helmets and flak jackets as explosions were going off around them, complete with mid-concert detours to bomb shelters.

Here, then, is one very tough blues cookie, whose life story isn't one too many people would envy.

Just to let you know why, be aware that Janiva (pronounced JAN-iva) lost both of her parents to suicide by the time she was 16; wound up fending for herself on the mean streets of Detroit at 13; bounced through no less than 12 foster homes in the next two years; became a teen mother forced to give up her baby for adoption; began suffering post-traumatic stress disorder; and was left perched on the brink of suicide herself.

All of this, before the age of 20.

"I don't mind talking about my history," she says some three decades later (she's 51), "as long as it serves a purpose."

Since Janiva is the national spokesperson for Casey Family Programs, promoting National Foster Care Month, she dredges up the painful memories one more time for that very purpose -- in the hopes that it might inspire or save anyone who might be at the same place she was a generation ago.

"Everybody's got a story," she says. "It's just that some people have more drama and some have less drama. Some have a different kind of drama." Bottom line: "My story is pretty dramatic."

The curtain on her drama rose with the suicide of her mother, which occurred in Janiva's 13th year. She then ran away from home, lived on the streets, became hooked on drugs and alcohol, passed through a dozen foster homes, visited three psychiatric care centers, got pregnant, gave away her baby and faced a second tragedy with the suicide of her father.

All by the age of 16, at which point she was tempted to follow her parents' paths.

"I wasn't so sure I wanted to be around -- I mean, why would I? Things were not going so good," she says. "But a series of small handfuls of people along the way were there to help me feel like maybe sticking around was a good idea."

Hence, her passionate commitment to the foster home concept.

"The last foster place I was in was the right placement for me," Janiva says. "I'd been in 12 homes in two years, but she (her foster parent) was the right fit and really helped me a lot."

Her savior was a single mom with five kids who worked as a drug and alcohol counselor, and who helped the now-18-year-old Janiva find her way back from the brink. "Did I turn around on a dime? No." But it was a beginning.

Also playing a part in her salvation was her natural-born penchant for loving music.

"As a little girl, I was always the one who knew all the words to all of the songs to all of the commercials on radio and TV," she recalls. "And I never had a problem understanding the words to the songs of the Stones and James Brown. I just got it."

The key turning point in that regard occurred at a concert featuring blues great Otish Rush.

"I'll never forget that he was so riveting, so fully committed to his craft, to the music, to every note on the guitar, to every word that he sang," she says, savoring the memory. "There was rage ... desperation ... tremendous joy ... all of it, all night long."

The net result: "I knew one thing when I left the club that night -- that it blew my mind, that it was something I had never experienced before, and that I had to have more of it."

The only drawback, she says, was that "I was too shy and too nervous to be bold enough to think that I could be a singer. In retrospect, though, it's really like the music and this path and this career chose me; not like I chose it. It just wouldn't let me be."

Thus, when she started auditioning for jobs at age 19, "I got every gig I tried out for, whether I wanted the job or not. By the time I was 22, I told myself, 'Well, I think you suck, and you can't sing, and you're no good at this.' The next best thing, I thought, would to become a recording engineer in a studio."

She did, but then kept getting asked "to sing on other people's records."

By the 1980s, she had worked her way to Phoenix, found a mentor in Sam Cooke's music director Bob Tate and managed to overcome her introversion to the point that she could front her first band, Janiva Magness & The Mojomatics.

Not that success came overnight. There was still another decade's worth of dues-paying to endure bore things started to break wide open in the '90s following her marriage to musician and songwriter Jeff Turmes.

"It took me until my 30s to believe I could do it," she says.

But her critics had come around much earlier, long extolling the virtues of her bold and brassy, but perfectly controlled technique.

The Los Angeles Daily News, for example, pegged her as "a superb, powerhouse R&B singer who delivers the blues and soul with show-stopping authority," while Blues Revue magazine restated that sentiment, calling her "a bold and potent artist of the highest order, with a powerful, soulful voice -- impossible to forget."

Fueling the fervor was the series of independently produced albums she recorded during the '90s and into the new century, climaxing with her being named Best Contemporary Female Artist of the Year twice, in 2006 and 2007, by the Blues Music Awards.

Her just-released eighth album, "What Love Will Do," marks her debut on the Tiffany's of boutique blues label, Chicago's Alligator Records.

But it was that recent tour to perform for the soldiers in Iraq that marked a career turning point and helped put her own life story into perspective.

"You'd be hard-pressed to find someone politically further to the left than me," she confesses. "But I didn't go for political reasons. I went because I now fully understand what my job is -- which is to connect with people. People need connection, they desperately need it."

It's the lesson she learned the hard way early in life, she says.

And it's the gift that the men and women stationed in the heat of war crave -- desperately.

"I've been given some sort of grace that, frankly I don't understand. But I know that my job is to bring myself to a song and, through that song, help at least one person in the audience to feel that sense of connection. Human beings are not meant to be alone."

Which is why Janiva Magness is the one you want at your side in the foxhole of life.

"Yeah, I'm the one. You really do want me with you."

Blues busters

Here's the complete artist roster for the Seventh Annual Nothin' But the Blues Festival Friday and Saturday. For the second year running, the event will take place at the Tri-Lakes grounds at 2100 Bunn St., Bloomington.

FRIDAY

• Mike Wheeler Band, 6 p.m.: Straight from Chicago, veteran bluesman Wheeler is now fronting his own band after stints with the likes of Big James & The Chicago Playboys and the Joanna Connor Band. He's also gigged with the real-deal likes of Koko Taylor, Jimmy Johnson, Shemekia Copeland, Willie Kent & The Gents, Son Seals, Matthew Skoller -- and the list goes on and on. Wheeler is currently touring on behalf of his self-titled debut CD.

• Cadillac Dave and the Chicago Redhots, 7 p.m.: Last minute addition from up north.

• Teeny Tucker, 8:15 p.m.: The festival's official claim to blues royalty, courtesy Teeny's status as the daughter of blues legend Tommy Tucker, who penned the R&B standard, "Hi Heel Sneakers." Teeny was still, well, teeny when "Hi Heel Sneakers" became a hit in 1964, but "I can remember ... sitting on the armrest of my dad's brand new Cadillac and hearing the song playing and thinking, 'Wow! I wanna sing like that!'" Wish granted: she's been a two-time, top-three finalist at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, and her singing style has been compared to the likes of Mahalia Jackson and Etta James. (Teeny-trivia: She's also worked as a logistics supervisor for the Department of Defense.)

• Larry McCray, 9:30 p.m.: For starters, let's just note that in 2000, McCray beat out nominees on the order of Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck for the Orville Gibson Male Blues Guitarist of the Year. 'Nuf said? The 48-year-old Arkansas native also became the first artist signed by Virgin Records' blues division, Pointblank Records. In 1990, they released his debut, "Ambition," a hit with both U.S. and European press.

SATURDAY

• Steve 'The Harp' Blues Band, 1:30 p.m.: The local blues favorites, fronted by harmonica-meister Steve Mehlberg, who'll also conduct his annual Nothin' But the Blues Festival harmonica workshop for kids and adults at 2:30 p.m.

• Daryl Coutts, 3 p.m.: This Chicago bluesman and Ronnie Baker Brooks Band veteran is famed for performing on what are described as "his two sets of keys and a monster Leslie speaker cabinet that is one big fat mama."

• Alvin Jett & The Phat noiZ Blues Band, 4:15 p.m.: Straight from St. Louis, this four-man band was a finalist at the 2006 International Blues Challenge in Memphis ... made the final four for Best Self-Produced CD ... and won Best Blues Song for "Angel Sings the Blues" at the 2007 Independent Music Awards. Says John May, president of the St. Louis Blues Society, "Alvin is the next generation of blues here ... an ideal continuation of the legacy of the St. Louis blues guitar tradition."

• Janiva Magness, 5:30 p.m.: See accompanying interview

• The Holmes Brothers, 6:45 p.m.: Siblings Sherman (bass, vocals) and Wendell (guitars, piano, vocals) are joined by Popsy Dixon (drums, vocals) for the sake of "roadhouse rock with a gospel fervor and harmonies of a Sunday church service." Wendell's take on the secular-sacred collision: "Jesus turned water into wine, not wine into water." Or, as USA Today put it, "The Holmes Brothers are juke-joint vets with a brazenly borderless view of American music. Their chilling harmonies resonate with a passion and conviction matched only by their inspired musicianship and their ability to perform sanctified gospel, low-down roadhouse blues, deep soul, Americana/country and pure pop -- all in one set."

• Thornetta Davis, 8:15 p.m.: This native Detroiter first garnered acclaim 21 years ago as a back-up singer for the Detroit soul band Lamont Zodiac & The Love Signs." Shortly thereafter, the lead singer left the band and the name changed to The Chisel Brothers featuring Thornetta Davis. In 1996, she recorded her first solo album, "Sunday Morning Music" on the famed Seattle-based indie label Sub Pop. One of the album cuts, "Cry," wound up on the soundtrack of HBO's "The Sopranos."

Licks at the Lakes

Here's the lowdown on the Seventh Annual Nothin' But the Blues Festival, presented by The Pantagraph:

What: A two-day celebration of the culture and tradition of blues music

When: 5 to 11 p.m. Friday, noon to 11 p.m. Saturday

Where: Tri-Lakes grounds, 2100 Bunn St., Bloomington

Cost: Single-day advance, $15; at the gate, $18; children 12 and under, free

Ticket sites: The Pantagraph, Pro Tire & Auto, Golf Discount, Eastland Chiropractic & Wellness Center, Famous Liquors, Pro Sound/Music Shoppe, Growing Grounds

On tap: A dozen local, national and international blues acts (see accompanying schedule); food court; beer garden; exhibitors; vendors; children's activities; tethered balloon rides; free harmonica workshop (2:30 p.m. Sat.)

Rain plan: If it rains, the festival will NOT move inside the Tri-Lakes banquet facility

More information: (309) 820-0099 and www.nothinbutthebluesfest.com

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Take a look

Janiva Magness will be performing Saturday at the Nothin' But the Blues Festival at the Tri-Lakes grounds in Bloomington. (For The Pantagraph)

Tenny Tuckek (left) will be performing Friday at the Nothin' But the Blues Festival at the Tri-Lakes grounds in Bloomington. Thornetta Davis (right) takes the stage on Saturday. (For The Pantagraph)

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