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* This is Part 2 of a two-part column on Lisa Fischer.
Making her Maui debut tonight, Lisa Fischer previously spent years touring and/or recording as a backing singer with a host of legendary artists including the Rolling Stones, Sting, Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Luther Vandross and George Benson.
“I love that,” Fischer emphasizes. “You get to be a chameleon, and you get to vibrate sound with different people. Everybody has their own unique fingerprint of what that is, and to get close enough to rub against it vocally and ignite an energy with them, I live for that.”
One of the stars she got to vibrate with was Sting. Fischer sang on his album “If on a Winter’s Night,” and her extraordinary vocal soloing on “The Hounds of Winter” amazed the British rock star. She most recently sang “Every Breath You Take” with Sting at a New York club in January.
“I got a call to do his holiday record from Bob Sadin, who was producing the project,” she explains. “He said, ‘Sting wants you to come to the studio,’ and I thought someone was pulling my leg. Singing with Sting has a beautiful, timeless, Zen feeling. It’s like stepping into a temple. His rivers run really deep, and his music had been so much a part of my life that it’s almost dreamlike to sing and share musical space with him. He’s an amazing gift to the world.”
Other career highlights for her have included many years performing with the Stones, teaming with Franklin on the dance hit “A Deeper Love,” and touring with Turner on her 50th anniversary tour, duetting on “It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll.”
A Guardian review of Turner’s concert at London’s O2 arena noted how she left “the spotlight a couple of times to one backing singer, the stratospheric Lisa Fischer.”
Among some of her other collaborations, there are a couple of memorable jazz projects with guitarist Lee Ritenour. And there was “A Twist of Motown,” where some jazz stars covered soul classics, and Fischer sang a medley of “War”/”What’s Going On” and a superb version of “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone.”
And Ritenour’s “A Twist of Marley” featured another Fischer highlight, an electrifying rearrangement of “Exodus,” with Michael Brecker on saxophone.
“It was an honor to be on that record,” she says.
More recently she was featured on jazz pianist Billy Childs’ wonderful tribute to Laura Nyro, “Map to the Treasure,” singing the title track.
“Lisa just kills it on ‘Map to the Treasure,'” Childs reported.
And last year she was included in the documentary “The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble,” which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. In the film, she is teamed with another phenomenal singer, Gregory Porter, and is featured with him on the upcoming Ma CD, “Sing Me Home.”
“I fell in love with his voice a couple of years ago,” she says. “I saw him at a show in New York and was so blown away by his level of expression and level of connection with the audiences. It was so pure. So to be with him and Yo Yo Ma in one room was so beautiful.”
Now Fischer is focusing on her own album, with the group Grand Baton, a follow-up to her Grammy-winning debut, “So Intense.”
“We’ve been just patiently waiting for things to come to us and seeing how it unfolds without any pressure,” she says. “There’s no record company and usually the clock ticks a lot quicker when you have a record company. I’m hoping before the year’s through we will have something to release.”
Will it include some of the covers she performs in concert?
“Maybe,” she says. “The way (band leader) JC (Maillard) arranges everything, a lot of songs have a different breath to them. It’s been cool capturing that in studio, but I’m also looking forward to trying to create some new music as well. When I first started singing, I didn’t think much about the way I sounded. I worked really hard and I worked with an open heart. I try to go vocally where I think I fit, and tried on as many vocal personas as possible, and see what style feels fun to do, and what songs feel exciting to sing. Each song has its own magic, its own life force. I love exploring all that. It’s like a roller coaster ride in an amusement park.”
Singing as a child in a church initially sparked her love for music.
“I was really impressed by the passion of the music in the church so I joined the choir,” she recalls. “But I was never a lead singer. I would always sing the parts in the background. I was always happy and comfortable doing that, the supportive role for me was the best.”
Fischer got a big break in 1983, when she was hired by soul legend Vandross as a backup singer, and subsequently worked with him until his death in 2005.
Releasing her debut solo album in 1991, she won a Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for her single “How Can I Ease the Pain,” tying with Patti LaBelle, whose award-winning project “Burnin'” also featured Fischer on background vocals.
“I was shocked just to be nominated,” she says. “I think singing background has made me feel this lovely space of being invisible most of the time. Sometimes I look at it (Grammy Award) in my home and I still have to pinch myself. It never gets old to me.”
Arriving on Maui after performing in Tokyo and Hong Kong, in concert she draws from various facets of her career and completely reinvents some well-known songs. A review of her recent show in Montreal marveled how she uniquely transformed Peggy Lee’s “Fever,” saying, “Elvis and Madonna have covered ‘Fever.’ Thousands of artists have covered ‘Fever.’ No one has covered ‘Fever’ as unique as Fischer, especially when the calmness of her version evolved into the classic Zeppelin tune, ‘Rock and Roll,'”
“JC Maillard is a big part of that,” she explains. “It’s allowed me the freedom to just explore. When I’m singing background, it’s in a particular area. The process is just so new to me.”
As she routinely mesmerizes audiences, one wonders when she is singing, does she ever feel like she’s somehow fusing or connecting with some of the great singers of the past?
“I feel that I’m connected to the source they were all connected to, and each individual finds the freedom to express it in different ways,” she says. “I feel complete peace and joy when I sing. Even when I was little, I felt that joy.”
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There’s more hot country music heading to Maui when country stars Justin Moore and Rodney Atkins play the Maui Arts & Cultural Center next month.
Following his breakthrough hit, “Small Town USA,” Moore was named Billboard’s Top New Country Artist in 2009. Both his self-titled debut album and follow-up, “Outlaws Like Me,” sold gold. The 30-year-old singer recently released the single “You Look Like I Need a Drink” from his not-yet-released fourth studio album.
Tennessee native Atkins has sold more than 4 million singles, and has scored six No. 1 hits including “Honesty (Write Me a List),” “If You’re Going through Hell (Before the Devil Even Knows)” and “Watching You.” In 2015, he released a greatest-hits album, which featured a new tune, “Eat, Sleep, Love You, Repeat.” Atkins has reported he will release a new album this year.
* The show will start at 6 p.m. April 28 in the MACC’s A&B Amphitheater. Tickets are $39, $49, $59, and $79, with a limited number of $129 premium seats. (plus applicable fees) and are available at the box office, by calling 242-7469 or online at www.mauiarts.org.
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The King Kamehameha Golf Club’s Waikapu Ballroom is evolving into a significant music venue on Maui. Blessed with one of the most spectacular settings on our island, the ballroom’s weekly entertainment schedule ranges from Willie K and his Warehouse Blues Band on Thursday nights, to Willie hosting Sunday afternoon Hawaiian jam sessions, and now hosting a Monday evening “Martinis and Jazz” show.
The ongoing Monday night event features Phil Smith and the Gentlemen of Jazz. Willie is a big fan of the veteran saxophonist.
“I consider Phil Smith as the best treasure on the island of Maui,” he says. “He is without a doubt the best musician I have come across in a very long time.”
The group performs a spectrum of music including swing, Latin, big band, Memphis blues, New Orleans style and cool jazz.
* The Monday shows run from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $25, which includes light pupus. Reservations are recommended by calling 866-5025.