Kellylee Evans Transcript, Podcast and Video E4 S2

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Transcript

Leah Roseman:
Hi, Kellylee Evans. Thanks so much for joining me.

Kellylee Evans:
Thank you so much for having me.

Leah Roseman:
I just really admire your singing and your power as a performer. And I know you have a new album out, which we're going to talk about a little later. But I thought to put that in context, it'd be really good for people that don't know your story and your singing to talk a little bit about how you got started .

Kellylee Evans:
For sure. Yeah.

Leah Roseman:
So I heard that when you were growing up, your mom was a member of the Record of the Month Club?

Kellylee Evans:
She was. And so that meant that we had a lot of different albums and different styles. I remember there'd be Boxcar Willie, and they would just send things that you had no idea what you were getting, so I would go through them, because I was a latchkey kid. My mom was a single mom. She was a nurse, so that's a lot of hours on your own. The record player and I were friends.

Leah Roseman:
Would you sing along?

Kellylee Evans:
For sure. Yeah. I've been singing since kindergarten, at least. I've been singing publicly since kindergarten and I'm sure I was probably singing... I can't even tell you when I started singing, but the first public performance, my first performance was when I was in kindergarten, a solo for the school.

Leah Roseman:
Oh wow.

Kellylee Evans:
Yeah.

Leah Roseman:
So were you taking voice lessons or in a choir?

Kellylee Evans:
Oh gosh, no. I ended up being in choir that I can remember, so probably it was just little things that the school would organize. So if you had a choir in your class, I would be part of that. But I wasn't a part of the school choir per se until... In high school, I ended up being a part of the Toronto Mendelssohn Youth Choir. And that was something that was after school. My family wasn't big on me getting into music per se. It was okay for me to be an all around student, which I was. And so I got into as many different clubs and things as I could, but it was really important to not, as they used to say, waste a credit.

Kellylee Evans:
And so I wasn't in choir. I didn't take any lessons in the beginning. It was funny because my cousin... she was my cousin, but I called her my aunt. So my aunt at that time, she knew a vocal coach, and the vocal coach didn't think that you should start training until you were 16 and your voice had changed. So I waited. And I wanted so badly, but once that had been laid down that it wasn't going to happen, so I never got any lessons and then my voice changed and I still didn't go and take lessons, because by then I was almost finished school and the focus was really to just graduate and get out of high school and get right into university.

Leah Roseman:
So just to backtrack a little bit with the Record of the Month Club, because people growing up now, they can't relate to that.

Kellylee Evans:
What's a record?

Leah Roseman:
Well, not only that, but just the fact that it wasn't so easily accessible. If you put on the radio, it was often top 40 stuff. It wouldn't be more eclectic choices. So it's a powerful thing. Your mom must have loved music to have been a member of this club.

Kellylee Evans:
She really did. And what was so interesting to me was, and when I think back, when payday came, we would go to the grocery store. So we'd go to two different grocery stores. We'd go to the regular grocery store where you get milk, regular bread, cheese, chicken, whatever. But then we'd also go to the West Indian grocery store where you'd get different types of food that are important to my culture. And then we went to the record shop. That was a part of the... My biweekly routine was to go and she would go through what was coming out and we'd get the latest Soca album or the latest Calypso or reggae. And all the records that I have now are my mom's records.

Kellylee Evans:
I don't think I've ever bought a record myself. I mean, I did later on as a teenager, but I pulled out this box of records. And I remember I had called it at one point of stuff I was never going to listen to. I wish I had never touched it. But after she died, there's an important shedding that needs to happen or else you're carrying many, many households. And so I went through and took the albums that meant the most to me, and I pulled them out over the summer and I bought a record player. And I was just going through the stuff that I can remember being in the record shop, because back then you could ask, could you play this? And they might play the album and then you'd buy it and bring it home. And then that would be what would be playing. And my mom wasn't big on setting up the record player herself. That was my job. So I would be in charge of the stereo and I would be in charge of the music. I was the DJ at the house.

Leah Roseman:
What were some of those special albums that you saved?

Kellylee Evans:
I saved this Calypso albums. Those were my favorite like Byron Lee and the Dragonaires. There was an amazing one from Rita Marley called One Draw that I just loved. And it's funny because I was listening back to it and I called up my godsister and I was just playing them for her because that was another part of my childhood was being in her basement during parties. So if you were having... it could be Christmas, we'd all get together for Christmas. And then everybody go down to the basement and my uncle who's now passed, well, he's my godfather, he would play these albums. And so we were just reminiscing on our childhood of just how much a part of our childhood music was and being down there and just listening to them play their records. And it's how it can just, voom, take you back. It's pretty amazing.

Kellylee Evans:
So the ones that I went to happened to be all of those Calypso, party music really, because that was what was so important to me at that time. And it's funny too how that experience of being the DJ at the house affected my career in a sense that when my mom got her first car that had a cassette player, she wanted me to take her Nina Simone albums and put them onto cassette. And people also won't understand just how everything involved in trying to record from that mode of audio like a vinyl LP, to a cassette where you've got to get the music on, get the needle in the right place, press record at the right time, have this proper distance between the speaker and the recording device and make sure that you get it. And then if it skips, what do you do? You're going to have to rerecord.

Kellylee Evans:
And through that, I had to learn all about my mom's Nina Simone albums, because I was just listening over and over and over again so I could make this cassette tape that she could play in the car. And it's from there that... it was listening to Nina with my mom, I was like, oh. I wasn't sure how much I enjoyed her. And that experience also was just imprinting her music into my life. And then also my ex-husband, he was a huge Nina Simone fan and he would play her music all the time too. So just being around music so much through others as well, really shaped me and shaped my career because then I went on to make this tribute album to Nina based on all these songs that I had learned from listening to her.

Leah Roseman:
Yeah. That was your first album, right?

Kellylee Evans:
Actually, no, that was my... I want to say that was my fourth album. My first album was an album called Fight or Flight. Then I did a live version which actually recorded at the NEC. And then the third one was called the Good Girl and then Nina. So Nina and the Good Girl were released around the same time. And then my first album Fight or Flight was nominated for JUNO, and then Nina was nominated and won. And then after Nina, we had I Remember When, Come On and that was nominated again. And now we're coming up to the next one.

Leah Roseman:
When you started working with the record label in France, were they all with that label or was Nina the first with that?

Kellylee Evans:
Nina was the first and only with that label. And that label's now since closed. So that album is just floating. It's out in the ether. The label went bankrupt and so it's just the masters is just sitting there.

Leah Roseman:
So you've mentioned your mom and you lost her quite young.

Kellylee Evans:
Yeah.

Leah Roseman:
So hard.

Kellylee Evans:
Yeah. It was, I think even more so because she left Jamaica in the sixties and went to study just to become a midwife in England. And it's funny because I watch Call the Midwife now and there's a character there that went from Jamaica. And I think back to that experience because that same godparents that I was telling you about, she met my godmother there when she was studying. So she'd been studying to be a nurse midwife and she ended up coming here to Canada and my godmother came as well and another godmother came, so it was the three of them. But other than that, I didn't have really a lot of family here in Canada. My dad's brother lived here for a while, but then he moved away. So I was really on my own when she left and I was an only child.

Kellylee Evans:
And so everybody was either in the states, England, Jamaica, wherever, but it was just me here. It really did affect me being an only child and also having that incredible light gone. Because even if she didn't a hundred percent support music, it wasn't because she didn't believe music was awesome. It was just, she really wanted me to be okay. Now as a parent, I can look back and be like, "Yeah, I totally get it." She wanted to make sure that I was going to be set because she knew how hard it is to be a human without funds. That's not an easy thing.

Leah Roseman:
So you were doing your masters in law?

Kellylee Evans:
Yeah. So it was my ma in legal philosophy here at Carleton University. And so my bachelor's is... and it's weird because I'm looking at it, it's bachelor of arts honors in law and then I have another one bachelor of arts, English with distinction. So those are my undergrads. And then I was interested at that time in minority rights and representation and in legal philosophy. And so I was doing my masters of arts in law. My parents, their hope I think would've been just like most immigrant parents a lawyer, doctor, engineer. And I tried to... I wasn't trying that hard though to really be a lawyer. I really was hiding in school. My goal was to just keep my head down and stay here as long as possible. Because school is awesome, and if you figured out the path, if you know what to do, you attend, you finish the assignments, you hand them in. You do the reading, you get a mark, everybody's happy. That's something that's very doable, I think if you can just follow the script. But real life outside of school is scary. And the music industry, what's the path?

Leah Roseman:
And your path was unusual. So to study vocal jazz, you had this study plan by month. Can you talk about that?

Kellylee Evans:
Yeah. It's so funny because I think that's just the obsessive aspect of my personality is just to break it down into a system and to say, okay, well I'm going to... I had met somebody that said, "Oh, jazz will be too difficult for you to learn." And I was like, "Oh really?" And so I decided I was going to learn. And I went and I just decided every single month I'm going to study one person. And back then we had... not Napster, because was a way that you could listen to lots of... it was a file sharing company. And so you could just listen to everything under the world. iTunes wasn't there yet. And I would go to the library and I would get the biography.

Kellylee Evans:
So for instance say this is November, November might be Mel Tormé month. If there's any biographies written on Mel Tormé or autobiography, I would get it and I would read it. I would listen to all of his CDs, as many as I could. I would just find out as much information as I could about him online. It was his month. Soon as that month was over, December might be Sarah Vaughan, down into Sarah Vaughan I go. And I think for the first year it was mainly just focusing on different singers. And then I thought I should open it up and learn about musicians. And all this is while I'm trying to also do my degree.

Kellylee Evans:
But it's funny because I look back now and I'm like, "Who was that?" I was capable of doing this crazy reading for legal studies like Habermas and Foucault and all these different thinkers who right now I'd be like, what are they saying? But back then I was still saying, what are they saying? But I was writing papers about what they were saying. Don't give me any of that to look at now. And able to do that, I had jobs. At one point my mom was sick and I was traveling back and forth to Toronto to take her to radiation or to take her to dialysis. Then I was driving back. I was teeing courses here. I was taking courses. I was writing and I was doing all that and going back and forth every week. Who was that?

Kellylee Evans:
I tried to take a course with an auditor course with Mark Ferguson a couple years back before the pandemic. Probably may even be listening there. And he's an awesome pianist and an awesome teacher. And also James McGowan, I did some courses with him just on music theory. I could barely keep up with the classwork of one little half credit. I looked at these students going to all these courses and I couldn't imagine going back to school and trying to take on that stress of learning and reading and thinking. Of course I didn't have kids back then, so that might also... And I didn't have as many responsibilities and a career, but it's a different world.

Leah Roseman:
So the Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition is very prestigious, very important jazz competition. You were runner up. So this really helped launch your career, didn't it?

Kellylee Evans:
Yeah. That was a big moment. It was a big moment. It was a big stage. We performed at the Kennedy Center in front of people like Colin Powell and just a lot of dignitaries in the US. And it was a big moment also because here I was meeting some of these people I had been studying about like the judges at the time, where it's like Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kurt Elling, Al Jarreau, Flora Purim, Quincy Jones. It was a serious group, Little Jimmy Scott. And then that's just the people judging you. You'd be in the elevator with Wayne Shorter. I remember getting in an elevator with Herbie Hancock and he said, Kellylee Evans. And I was like, oh my God. It was just this very surreal moment and brush with some of these stars.

Kellylee Evans:
And it was, I think that little step up where they just pulled you up a little so that you could see that this is what it looks like, and this is where you could go. And they've been wonderful to me over the years and inviting me to be part of the teaching faculty in Chicago with some younger students and to come back on stage and perform and be a part of... They brought me to Jazz Day in Paris and was able to perform with Hugh Masekela who's sadly passed away recently. And they just create these moments where you get a chance to shine amongst the people at the upper echelon of the music. So it's been very, very humbling and nice and it's exactly what my career needed right at the moment it needed it.

Leah Roseman:
So you mentioned on the jury panel there were two women, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Flora Purim. So you were a mom at that point already?

Kellylee Evans:
Yes.

Leah Roseman:
Did you talk to them about the challenges?

Kellylee Evans:
I sure did. And it's funny because I woke up this morning and there was a message from Dee Dee and she was just telling me about this mentorship program that she started. And I don't know if she knows how much of a mentor she was for me at that time and over the years, just being able to ask her questions here and there. And I got to talk to her daughter and find out what it was like for her... both of her daughters, find out what it's like for them being the children of a touring artist. And Flora as well gave me lots of great tips and would meet with me when I was in the states and check in on me as well.

Kellylee Evans:
So it's funny I was just thinking about her recently, because I haven't talked to her in many, many, many years. Mentorship and especially female mentorship in a business that's very male oriented is so important because I think a lot of people don't think... So many people ask me now, oh, it must be so hard for you during the pandemic to not be on the road? And I'm like, "No, I love it because I get to stay home with my family and they really do need me." I mean, all ages are when kids need parents, but this is a pretty tender age. This has been just a blessing for me to be able to be home and find other ways to create as opposed to being away and being like, "Geez, what's going on? I'm wishing that I could be there."

Kellylee Evans:
A musician's life, it's important for us, I think, to be able to be there for one another. That's another nice thing that happened to me during the pandemic. I had my friend Shakura S'Aida who's a blues singer based in Toronto, amazing blue singer. She started a group of other female band leaders, women of color that would get together on a weekly basis throughout the pandemic. And now we meet less frequently, but that was so amazing to be able to talk to other, in some cases, other mothers, other people, and what are you doing? How are you doing? And these constant check-ins. This pandemic has also created a way to connect as a community that didn't quite exist in the same way, because we didn't even know that we had the need for it.

Leah Roseman:
Yeah. So your career was really taking off and you're touring a lot in Europe and you're doing a lot of work in France, I believe. You had a couple of near death experiences. You're very famous for the lightning strike. But before that, you had a really scary experience as well.

Kellylee Evans:
I did. It was back in, I want to say 2002. It's actually what started me in the business. And so I hadn't really thought of it from that perspective as being, it's the catalyst of how I really got started. I think it was around 2002, maybe early 2003. I was playing tennis and I had an ankle roll over. And the people may not know what that is, it's when you hear the ligaments go pop. And it's very audible and very horrible. I went to the hospital and they diagnosed it and they told me to go home and have Advil. And I had no idea that I was allergic to Advil, because when I was growing up they always just said, "Don't give your kids aspirin, give your kids to Tylenol." So my mom always gave me Tylenol. I've never had aspirin.

Kellylee Evans:
But it was for the inflammation. Picked up some on the way home from the hospital, got home, took it, and my face swell up. I was like Will Smith in Hitch and rushed back to the hospital. And they pumped me full of adrenaline. And I remember passing out and waking up and I went back home. So basically at the time, the part that I don't really share as much is that I had gone to this guru before because I had had some problems with my voice and I was blocked, and this lady who helped artists who were blocked. And so she was like, "Well, I want you to make a list of all the things that you want to do." And I was just like, "Who needs that?"

Kellylee Evans:
Because up to then, it was just like, we just do what other people tell us to do. We do what's going to make other people happy, everybody stays happy. And so I had written just my dream bucket list and I had always wanted to learn to play tennis. And so tennis was on the list, learning to write a song was on the list, be a musician was on the list. At this point, my mom had passed away. I was a mom to a two year old. So I had that on that list. And my husband at that time said to me when we got back home, he was like, "That ball could have hit you in the throat." He said, "In all time we've been together..." We'd been together at that point since I was 16. He was like, "The whole time we've been together, I'd never heard you say you wanted to play tennis." He was like, "Why don't you write a song?"

Kellylee Evans:
Because in the living room, I'd had this pile of books on songwriting, because I'm a researcher. And I had this pile of books on tennis and I kept looking at the tennis books. And he was like, "Why don't you write a song?" And I was like, "Fine then." Because I was still recuperating on the couch, I was still also swollen and I pick up this book, it's probably like Songwriting for Dummies. And I wrote my first songs and all of those songs became the music on my first album that ended up being nominated for the JUNO. I guess it's funny because I never thought that led to that, but that totally led to that.

Leah Roseman:
And so then a few years later when you're washing dishes, right?

Kellylee Evans:
Washing my dishes in my house, in the country and during a lightning storm and the lightning hit the roof of the house and went down through the pipes and that was just the moment that my head hit at the edge of the sink. And then the charges went through my body and it just totally changed my life forever, and I never felt the same. What's really cool, I have cool things happening right now for me, I think I never gave up but I gave up a bit, and my left side just never felt right. Because it was very stroke like, the effects. I started going to physio again at the beginning of this year and they had been working on stuff because sometimes my hands would twist in and... not kind of. They would twist in and it would be hard.

Kellylee Evans:
It's so funny because I can hardly do it now because they're getting strong again. I'm not affected right now. So we were working on that and we did all that. Every time I would go in, she would check on that to make sure that they were still behaving and staying straight and being able to do this is really awesome. Because my hands kind of pull in. But she was like, "Well, what do you want to work on today?" And I realized I never really talk about my left leg and my left side and I just take it in that I'm just differently abled. I'm not going to be able to use my left side as others or as I could. And she started working with me on it.

Kellylee Evans:
And then I started to also go to my osteopath because I'm seeing results. To be able to move my foot and to twist my foot and turn my ankle. And this week to be able to be on tiptoes on my left side, it's like, what is happening? So to feel all of that, I just feel like, ah, good things are happening. I'm so excited to feel more freedom of movement through my left side and to see the development happening on my left side is really amazing. So yes, really good things. And that's since 2013, it's a long time. Eight years of thinking that the effects from that lightning were permanent. And maybe they still are permanent, but doesn't mean that they can't improve.

Leah Roseman:
Yeah. It's really great to hear about that progress.

Kellylee Evans:
Thank you.

Leah Roseman:
So with all these difficulties you've faced and this courage you've mustered and your creativity, you have another career you've started as a motivational speaker. Is that right?

Kellylee Evans:
Yeah. I think because I would do interviews like this and people would say, "Wow, can you come and tell my staff about it? Or would you come and talk to my students about it?" And so I started getting these phone calls after I would do an interview on the CBC or back in the day, Canada AM. People would start calling me and I would be like, "Oh, sure." And I would just come in. So I've had the chance to speak to students and to adults across the... well, I can say across the world. I've done these speeches too in Martinique and in Haiti. And it's funny, it's been a blessing.

Kellylee Evans:
Wait, did I do it in Martinique? I want to just say Haiti. Let's just say Haiti. There was another country I had done when it... But it's been a blessing to be able to talk to people because you get to share your story. That's really special. But then in the question and answer part, people start to share their story and you get to see how alike so many of us are and that that thread of humanity just keeps passing through. And when you hear people just respond like, "Wow, that's exactly what I've been feeling or that's what happened. And I haven't been able to talk about it." It's a beautiful job in that way.

Kellylee Evans:
The songwriting aspect it's like I get to say things maybe that some other people may not want to say, but they're feeling. I get to make music that can touch somebody on a specific day, music that can grow with a person. Like a friend of mine called and she had just put her CD player back to together because not a lot of people have CDs anymore. She put her CD player back together and she found one of my first CDs and she was singing. And she started to just tell me about where she was when she remembered hearing that CD and just how it can take you back. I mean, you know, you're a musician as well how we can be a part of people's lives in these moments and it's a very lucky, humbling, blessed position to be in, I think.

Leah Roseman:
So I was just listening to the album you made with the Roddy Ellias song, Not This Room.

Kellylee Evans:
Oh my goodness. I love that project so much.

Leah Roseman:
Yeah. For people who haven't heard my conversation with him, it's in season one and he's a guitarist and composer. And he had talked in that conversation about he was writing those songs at that time. I was so, so moved to listen... I mean, you're such an incredible performer and your delivery of Sandra's beautiful words and the whole way all the instrumentation was done, it's an incredible album that's about the pandemic experience.

Kellylee Evans:
Thank you. I feel moved whenever I sing it or listen to it or just to think... because when Roddy wrote me about it, I just said, yes. I just said, "Yeah, Roddy." The same way I said yes for his last project that we worked on together, which was the puppet opera, Sleeping Rough. I didn't know what was going to come out of it. And when you hear the music and then you read the text and then you get out of your head because there's a learning aspect for me where it's like, okay, first I'm not really so focused on the text. I'm more focused on learning the notes because Roddy's music isn't just like, boom, you listen one time and you've got it. Unless maybe you're a genius? I need to sit with it for a long while and truly learn it.

Kellylee Evans:
So then adding in the layer of the text and singing, you're like, okay, I need to really... That's just even before you get to the rehearsal. So I've got it. I'm here. And now to get out of the, oh, I'm making mistakes. To get out of that and then now get into the actual experience of the music, then you're like, wow. You feel the wow of it. And then when I got back the edits, the mixes and I was sitting here with my daughter and we were listening and we were just jaw droppingly beautiful. People, if you can find it, it's on Bandcamp under Roddy Ellias, E-L-L-I-A-S. He's a genius. He really is. And his wife, Sandra, she's a genius. And the words that they use to describe these commonplace experiences that we've all... well, for many of us have gone through over these past two years, they're poignant, they're touching, they're beautiful and they're true.

Leah Roseman:
And very challenging vocal lines he wrote for you at the-

Kellylee Evans:
Oh my God, Roddy.

Leah Roseman:
Extremes of your vocals. You mentioned Sleeping Rough, which I've discussed with him in my conversation with him, which I heard you live. It was so incredibly moving. And you memorized the whole thing. Your delivery was so powerful. How did you memorize that?

Kellylee Evans:
It was the only choice because I didn't know how to read music, so I had to memorize it. So it was like all of that was in my head. I was saying to Roddy, I was like, "Darn it." So I told you that I went going to audit courses in music. That was because of doing Sleeping Rough. I was so taken. Actually what happened was I was out doing a music camp in Saskatchewan for the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival. And I was with the students and I was just telling them just how... not to say that I envied them, but I found it so amazing that they could be the ages that they were, so high school age, early university, and they could choose music just like that. They could just say, "I'm just going to do music." And their parents were like, "Okay, here's the money."

Kellylee Evans:
You know what I mean? Or they'd be like, "Yeah, sure. That's totally cool." And so they were all there and they just took it for granted. It's just like, that's okay for them to be there. And I was like, "Wow, I would've loved to have that level of just go do it. Go be you." So I came away from it. And at the time, I'm here trying to learn Roddy's project, Sleeping Rough, and I'm memorizing it note for note and line for a line. So I said, "When I go back home, I'm going to take music. I want to learn to read music." And so that's what did. I signed up.

Kellylee Evans:
And then now I have to read the music. When I was doing Roddy's project, I'm like, "Shoot, I could have had this memorized, but instead of memorizing it, I'm reading along." It's not even fully reading, it's somewhere in between where it's just like the reading is guiding me. But I miss when I just internalize the songs. And I'm sure if I actually stepped away from the music, it'd be fine. But I have so much fear, respect for Roddy's music, I want it to come across in the best way possible. And so now I'm like, "Well, I can read it. So let me do it." I'm still not awesome at reading, but I love what I've been given, a deeper level. It's like I had a basic level, maybe if you're at the library and you're in with the kiddie books. I was in the early reader section and now I'm at the leveled reader section of music, but it's been fun.

Leah Roseman:
So now for your newest album release, so we're doing this interview actually a week before the release, so I haven't heard it yet but I've bought the pre-sale on Bandcamp.

Kellylee Evans:
I'll send it you.

Leah Roseman:
When people hear this, this will have been released. So can you say a little bit about it and what the songs are about.

Kellylee Evans:
For sure. This album is called Greenlight and it's similar to Roddy's project in that it was made during the pandemic. But it doesn't have to do with the pandemic per se, it has to do with human emotions experienced during the pandemic. But it could be any time, do you know what I mean? The songs are about loneliness, mental health, supporting people through mental health struggles. It's about just love and longing. I think that's what I write about the most. And it's funny I realized just in the last little while I've been just doing a lot of reading and that's just going to be me. That's just going to be my story. Love and longing is just part of it.

Kellylee Evans:
And it makes sense because I was this kid, this latchkey kid on my own with a single mom who was working 12 hour shifts or nurses' shifts. And she was back to work in three months. There was a time back when you didn't get a year to develop with your kid. So I spent a lot of time on my own, a lot of time reading, a lot of time wishing I had a brother or sister. I had a half brother, but he wasn't raised with me and raised mostly in another country.

Kellylee Evans:
And again not living near a huge amount of family or anything. I think there will always be in my music that longing for connection and for human connection even. And it's funny, it makes me think of this line in one of the songs that talks about loneliness in crowded rooms. It's just that idea that you could be surrounded, you could be on a stage in front of thousands of people and still have that inner loneliness. So that's the new album.

Leah Roseman:
So being alone at home during the pandemic, was your writing process a little different than when you were out touring all the time?

Kellylee Evans:
Yeah. It was different because, it's funny, I like being alone to write. I actually prefer it. And I know I've never loved co-writing situations where the person's right beside you. I've never really been a teamwork in that way. I just want to do my part and then you bring your part and then we'll... I've had to learn how to be a team worker. I remember when I was writing my part on Jane Bunnett's album, Embracing Voices, that album won the JUNO. And so she gave me the music and she was like, "Here you go." And I wrote my music on top of that so my melody and my lyrics. And I need to be able to ferry myself away and write.

Kellylee Evans:
I'm thinking about it because I find the shower is a place for me. I like to write in the shower. When I did Embracing Voices, we were up at Beth Center and I went to the pool. I remember my kids were playing in the pool and my ex was watching them. And I was there trying to write, because we had to record the next day or something and I was like, "Oh my God, I'm so behind." And so I'm writing this music. And again, that sound when you're in a pool, it's that white noise. And then I love writing on common transport. I love writing on the plane. I love writing in the train, the Metro in Paris. And I know when I had to do I Remember When and come on, in between going to the producer's house and working on the audio, I would've sometimes just ride the train and sit in the chair in my seat and just write that way.

Kellylee Evans:
And so the thing that's popping up for me is, it doesn't need to be alone. I actually like the movement and the energy of the people around me. But I seem to like that white noise of the water or the train or the plane sound for some reason. I don't know. And I always wonder people must think... Because I'll be sitting behind them in an airplane and I'll be singing the melodies or singing the baselines into my iPhone recorder on the airplane. But it's a great place for me. And so you're asking how different. That did not happen in here.

Kellylee Evans:
And it's funny because I went to work at our common workplace and I knew I was going to be starting on a certain day and I knew that I was going to be busy and I was like, I may not get this done. So I had these... I think it was three or four weeks to get it written, to produce the tracks underneath. Record so they sounded the way that I wanted to before I gave them to the musicians to get my vocals recorded on top, just like a scratch vocal and then send it to them, get it back from them and record my final vocal and the backing vocals over top. So that was the process of making this album and all just in this little bedroom here. But all of it happened. Again, it just created this cocoon here in my dark room.

Leah Roseman:
Well, it's going to be really exciting to hear that album.

Kellylee Evans:
So I was telling you guys about this album that I performed or that we recorded called Nina, which was a tribute to the amazing music of Nina Simone. And this song, it's her song. It's a song that I get to sing pretty much every night that I go out and do my show because as a jazz artist, it's hard to have hits, but that's what a lot of people would know me for this song. And it also describes how I want to feel and it's called Feeling Good. (singing).

Leah Roseman:
Thank you so much for that. So good.

Kellylee Evans:
Thanks very much. Thank you.

Leah Roseman:
I just saw the movie about her, Nina Simone. It's so moving and disturbing.

Kellylee Evans:
Yeah. It was the documentary, what's... Oh gosh. I can't remember. What Happened, Miss Simone?

Leah Roseman:
Did you know that about her back when you made the album?

Kellylee Evans:
I think I didn't know the details. I just knew that she reminded me a lot of my grandma. She was just so forthright and so she'd just tell it like it is. And it's funny, I would like to watch that movie again because if you have an undiagnosed mental illness, it's not easy when you're diagnosed and to get the supports that you need and to find what you're looking for. When you think back to the time that she lived in, the access to services, plus access to services on the road, if you're always on the road. And if people aren't necessarily looking out for your best interest, taking you off the road when you need to rest and make sure that you're okay. That's just not an ideal scenario.

Kellylee Evans:
So I think I should watch that again and just get a sense of where she was at. I think that my compassion coach would go up even more for her. But definitely when I was making that album, I knew some things, but it was mainly... I don't even think we were as advanced as we are right now in our views on mental health even back in 2010 and '11 when I was making the album. I think we have a lot more compassion.

Leah Roseman:
A lot more openness, a lot more information, hopefully

Kellylee Evans:
For sure. Different times and they keep growing and they keep evolving.

Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Well, thanks for singing. That was just great.

Kellylee Evans:
All right. You're welcome. Thanks for asking. It makes me feel good too singing. Singing makes me happy.

Leah Roseman:
Of course there'll be links in the description of this video for your website and all your current projects. And thank you so much for agreeing to this today.

Kellylee Evans:
Well, thank you so much. It was really an honor to get your note asking me if we could do this together. And your questions, they're deep and I can see that you did a whole bunch of research and I'm really thankful for the opportunity to talk to you and just before to learn a little bit about you.

Leah Roseman:
Thanks. Okay. Take care.

Kellylee Evans:
You too. Take good care and thank you again for having me.