Vahn Black Interview
This is the transcript from my interview with Vahn Black.
The podcast and video versions along with the show notes are linked here:
Vahn Black:
And in that time I had some time to kind of think about what I was experiencing. Living in New York, everything is so fast. I don't think I really fully had time to process how I was feeling about being there. It was like, got to get up, got to work, got to get home, got to eat. So yeah, when I was able to process and everything, I started writing about those feelings and how I just felt very alone and felt like a bit of an outcast and I didn't really know what to do. Everyone else is having a great time except for me. So that's where The City came from. And yeah, I feel like it embodies my struggles with being in a big city really well after being so comfortable with being in the South.
Leah Roseman:
Hi, you're listening to Conversations with Musicians with Leah Roseman. This podcast strives to inspire you through the personal stories of a diversity of musicians with in-depth conversations and great music that reveal the depth and breadth to a life in music. Vahn Black is a vocalist based in Atlanta. And in this episode we focused on her project celebrating Gladys Bentley, including Vahn's fantastic album Petrichor. Born and raised in Detroit, Vahn grew up in a melting pot of music, and this aided her in cultivating her soul charged, jazz infused sound, marrying her reverence for vocalists like Sarah Vaughn with her love of producers like J Dilla. We talked about her musical education, her career path, her research into Black history and culture, her joy of collecting vinyl and some of her other creative outlets. It was interesting to hear about her contrasting experiences with work, life and music in Detroit, New York, and Atlanta.
As a composer, Black has lent her artistry to various art mediums from short films to interactive performance art. In 2023, she was selected to perform at NPR 's Tiny Desk On the Road tour stop in Atlanta. And for those listeners who are fans of Vahn Black and for those who are discovering her, I hope you'll enjoy this conversation, which is punctuated with her music. Like all my episodes, you can watch this on my YouTube channel or listen to the podcast on all the podcast platforms. And I've also linked the transcript to my website, leahroseman.com. The podcast theme music was commissioned from composer Nick Kold, and you can use the timestamps to navigate the episode. Before we jump into our conversation, I wanted to let you know that this weekly podcast is in season four, and that I send out a email newsletter where you can get access to sneak peeks of upcoming guests and be inspired by highlights from the archive. Have a look at the description of this episode where you'll find all the links, including the support link to buy this independent podcaster a coffee. Now to Vahn Black.
Hey Vahn, thanks so much for joining me here today.
Vahn Black:
Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.
Leah Roseman:
I must say I love your voice, and I had listened to your music quite a bit before with this most recent album. I hadn't known about Gladys Bentley, so I want you to speak to her and her experience. But it was interesting as a listener because I was thinking lot of your listeners, especially on streaming services who don't hear the whole album, they may not realize what the songs are about and the backstory.
Vahn Black:
So with the Gladys Bentley project, well, first of all, Gladys Bentley was this amazing Blues singer and pianist and actress and comedian. She was everything. She left home at a really young age at 16 to go to New York and pursue music. And one day she heard of an audition to play piano at a bar, and they were like, they wanted to be a man, and she was like, I can play as good as any other man. So she put on a suit, went down there, and long story short, she got the gig and she became this huge star. And she was popular for doing these raunchy songs and recreating things with a little dirty twist. And during the prohibition era and all these other things, all that stuff became a criminalized. And so there were some issues with her being able to perform. And so she moved and all that, and the shows just weren't popping as they used to be.
And then she eventually released this article called I'm a Woman Again, basically denouncing everything that she had done prior in her career from dating other women to wearing a suit, referring to herself as a husband. She had claimed that she had found this newfound life and was a new person because of hormone therapy, which of course is very harmful for so many reasons. And a lot of people talk about her story and kind of project their own thoughts onto her and say, well, maybe she was just doing it because she needed the money or because of the era and she didn't want to go to jail, which could be true, but also I think it's nice to just accept her for who she is and take her at her word and just let her be who she was. So yeah, that's a bit about Gladys Bentley, and I just really wanted to tell that story through her project because she's not talked about as much as other people from that era. And I think her story is really important.
Leah Roseman:
And so I think it was in the 1920s when she was at the height of her popularity, the Harlem Renaissance
Vahn Black:
About the 1930s
Leah Roseman:
A little later, but she was out and proud and earning lots of money and playing as a Black artist, she was playing in white clubs before other people as well.
Vahn Black:
Yes, yes. She was ahead of her time.
Leah Roseman:
And I read that article in Ebony magazine, it's really heartbreaking and there's this subtext to it. I really found it very moving.
Vahn Black:
Yeah, it's super heartbreaking and super moving, especially when you go to later editions and you read the responses because people in magazines, of course, they used to write responses to the articles and it makes you even sadder because it's like, wow, there are so many other people that felt like her and didn't want to feel the way that they felt within their gender or their sexuality, and they really believed that there was something that could change that. So it is really heartbreaking to read her side and to read the responses to that.
Leah Roseman:
So I believe that was 1952, that article. And she died not long after of pneumonia. So unfortunately didn't get to see actually, she would've had to wait a long time for changes in society, I have to say after that point.
Vahn Black:
Yeah, it would've been a long wait. I just always wonder what it would be like had she lived a little bit longer though. I mean towards the end of her life when she passed, she was in the process of becoming a minister. And so I mean, there's no telling what could have happened where she would've gone in life, and all we have is wonder and we got to build a story around it if we want to.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. So in the article she says she was writing a book, but I guess that never came to fruition.
Vahn Black:
Yeah, it's unclear whether or not she was joking or if she was actually saying she was going to write a book because when she said it, she said it on a, I forget the show, but she said it on a show and she kind of said it in passing and people were laughing. I don't know if they were laughing at the fact that she thinks she can write a book or, Ooh, it's called This thing. And that's the title of a movie. So it's unsure and I really wish there was something laying around though,
Leah Roseman:
But we can hear her tremendous voice. There's recordings.
Vahn Black:
Yes, yes, there are a lot of recordings, well enough recordings that have been left behind. She did a few sides for a few different companies and yeah, thankfully we're able to enjoy her thanks to the work of so many different archivists across the country.
Leah Roseman:
When did you first hear about her and hear her singing?
Vahn Black:
I believe I first heard about Gladys Bentley when I was an undergrad. I was at Spelman College and I was doing some work with the L-G-B-T-Q Rights Organization on the campus, and during their Pride week, there were posters going around. The theme of the year was Harlem Renaissance, and they really wanted to highlight figures from the time who were out and open and queer. And one of the people that they featured was Gladys Bentley. And I just remember being like, that's a nice suit and that's a nice top. I really enjoy that, that look, it's really great. And kind of didn't really pay it too much attention. I was like, this is cool. But I didn't really do any digging. A few years later, I believe I came across her from something, somebody mentioned her or brought her up because people are starting to talk about her more in recent years and I started to read her story and everything and I was like, wow, this is really fascinating.
And some pieces of her story kind of felt familiar with struggling with body image and fat phobia and transphobia and queerphobia and all those things. And through that I found that there were actual recordings online and I just fell in love with her voice and the ability that she has to imitate a trumpet. It's just amazing. And her piano playing is out of this world. She doesn't get enough credit for being an amazing pianist. And yeah, I just, going down that rabbit hole slowly over time has really been fulfilling and I still learn more the little that's about her, the little that's available about her today. I still learn stuff when I go down rabbit hole, so yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. Where are you finding more information
Vahn Black:
Through different websites, different archives? There are some databases that have collected where different things for different people, specifically like queer Black folk are across the country. So different databases like queer music histories and black queer archives, I believe it's called. Just different places scattered across the country.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. Well, I mean some listeners will want to do some digging too, so that's good to know the resources. So if we can get into your album, Petrichor, one of the most beautiful words in the English language, I have to say. Great album name. But you actually didn't call any of the tracks, Petrichor, just the album.
Vahn Black:
Yeah, it's so funny. I really wanted to move with this theme of water and storms and change, but I didn't write a song called Petrichor. I don't really know how that happened, but I still thought it fit the theme really well with it being the onset of a storm or the onset of change. And the project pretty much is inspired by the high times of her career and the good times that she had prior to discovering the things that she wrote about in that article. So yeah,
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, celebration of Gladys. So it's a fantastic album, really. Congratulations.
Vahn Black:
Thank you.
Leah Roseman:
Not just the power of your singing, the way you use rhythm, and of course you produced it all the layering. It's really, really great. One track I was hoping we could include is Too Soon.
Vahn Black:
Yeah, sure. So Too Soon is actually my favorite song from the project, and it's one of the last ones that I created actually was kind of a last minute thing. And I was really inspired by my Baptist upbringing and being from up South, as some of us call it, being from Detroit and really embodying that deep gospel influence that I've really been trying to call on in recent years. Just thinking about John P. Kee, Hezekiah Walker. And I just really wanted to get real gritty and country and the lyrics, the theme behind Too Soon is I was imagining Gladys being in the club and as she was famous for flirting with someone in the audience and being a little salacious. And I just really wanted to kind of tell that story and imagine what it would be like to be in the club while she's flirting with someone and singing with somebody and wooing them.
Leah Roseman:
Vahn generously recorded a special live version of her composition Too Soon, which you can also hear on her album Petrichor.(music)
Well, thanks for sharing that. You had just talked about being from Detroit and you used this expression up South. Is that because of the migration of the Black community?
Vahn Black:
Yes. Yes, because of the migration with a lot of people, specifically being from Georgia, feel in Detroit, some people from Mississippi, of course like all over, but a lot being from Georgia, some people call it up South because there's a lot of country things about the city to some extent and about some people who have been in the city for a few generations. So some people like to refer to it as up South.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. Never heard that. So you're based in Atlanta now?
Vahn Black:
Yes.
Leah Roseman:
And they're both really big cities for music. What's the scene for you?
Vahn Black:
Being in Atlanta has been interesting because there's so much music all the time. It's not New York, but it's not a quaint city with nothing going on. And there's so much from different genres. There's a folk scene, there's a heavy R and B scene, and of course a heavy Hip Hop Trap scene. And for me, even though it's really exciting to see so many doing amazing things here on the scene, it's kind of been hard for me to find where I fit and kind of find my tribe. After college, everybody leaves, they go back home, they go elsewhere. And so I kind of lost that community that I had and I had to rebuild in a way. And so I've kind of been moving out of the intention of always meeting new people and trying to learn new things because yeah, it's just been very odd for me. A little challenging. I remember a few years ago at the height of Trap music, whenever I was booked for a show, I was usually the only singer and the rest were rappers. And I would start scatting and everybody would look at me, what is she doing?
But yeah, it's been very interesting.
Leah Roseman:
I was thinking in a previous album of yours, what is it? Temporary Colors, you have the song, The City, and you have a lyric, the meaning of belonging. Actually, I really liked that tune. Maybe we could include that as well, if you want to talk to that album a little bit.
Vahn Black:
Yeah, so Temporary Colors actually was my first full body of work. I started some of the songs prior to the Pandemic, but the Pandemic really pushed me to complete it. And because I was spending so much time to myself, I did a lot of everybody else, the cliche, I did a lot of thinking and sitting with myself. So those things came out of that. And I was coming from New York and Corona had hit, and so I came back to Georgia for a little bit just to kind of decompress. I had gotten laid off from my job, and in that time I had some time to kind of think about what I was experiencing. Living in New York, everything is so fast. I don't think I really fully had time to process how I was feeling about being there. It was like got to get up, got to work, got to get home, got to eat. So when I was able to process and everything, I started writing about those feelings and how I just felt very alone and felt like a bit of an outcast and I didn't really know what to do. Everyone else is having a great time except for me. So that's where the city came from. And yeah, I feel like it embodies my struggles with being in a big city really well. After being so comfortable with being in the south
Leah Roseman:
This is The City from Vahn Black’s album Temporary Colors(music)
So you chose to go back to Atlanta rather than Detroit after
Vahn Black:
New York? Yeah. It's funny. I actually have a very complicated relationship with Detroit. It's a great place. I would not be who I am today without it, but I guess I have so much family that's left. It doesn't really feel the same to me. I feel very uprooted whenever I'm there. But Atlanta, which actually my maternal side actually has roots in Georgia. It's become home in a very specific way that I feel like it's hard to describe. Even though like I said, a lot of friends have left and people pass. It's just something that feels very comfortable and comforting here. So I felt like it was right to come back.
Leah Roseman:
And you have a song, Old Redford is kind of about Detroit, right?
Vahn Black:
Yeah, it is about Detroit. Yep.
Leah Roseman:
So Detroit is the birthplace of so many different styles of music. And growing up you also studied Classical, right?
Vahn Black:
I did. When I was coming up, I attended Detroit School of Arts and I started to get some classical training, started to do the Baroque and Classical and And it was so much fun. I had so much fun and we even got to sing at Carnegie Hall and it really inspired me to want to teach music, which that changed later on. But it was a very influential and impactful time in my life to get that Classical training and to be around so many musicians.
Leah Roseman:
What was that school? How big was it? How did it run in terms of was it half academic and half arts?
Vahn Black:
So we still had to do our core stuff, so the math and social studies and stuff, but a big part of it was still the arts. And there were sometimes the teachers would try to work in the arts with the regular core curriculum and the school, the building itself was large, the student body was small, so everybody had seen or knew everybody. You knew everybody's business. And in a way it created a really good creative community because we knew if I want to do this project and I need drums, I can hit up this guy and if I want to do this dance, but I need this kind of track to move like this, I can go to that guy. So it was really nice to be around so many people in such a close proximity and just really learn the importance of community building and creating that circle and moving together.
Leah Roseman:
So I'm assuming there's dance and music and acting and visual
Vahn Black:
Arts. Yeah, dance, singing, there's band, orchestra, music, technology, radio and television and fine arts.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. Hi, just a short break from the episode, which I hope you're enjoying so far. If you want to check out over a hundred episodes you may have missed in addition to your podcast player or YouTube, I have an extensive website, leah roseman.com with show notes, transcripts, the complete catalog of episodes, and you can sign up there for my weekly newsletter to get access to sneak peeks of upcoming guests. Please do share your favorite episodes with your friends, follow me on social media and share my posts. And if you can spare a few dollars to help support the series, that would be amazing. And you can find that link in the show notes. I'm an independent podcaster and I really do need the help of my listeners. Now, back to the episode.
So you were inspired at that time to want to be a music teacher because you had great teachers?
Vahn Black:
Yes, I had some of the best teachers in the land. I would stand by that forever. Connie Malabed and Cheryl Valentine, they were amazing with working with us and meeting us where we were, but still being stern and being like, y'all need to get this music right. And I think because they had lived so much life through music and they had taught for so long and taught so many different kinds of students and people, they just knew how to handle us. They knew how to hold us, they knew when to be strict, and no matter how hard the music was, we always got it. And I don't think every music instructor can do that, can teach really hard music, especially the children who don't have that experience and don't know how to make the music and never stumbled with proper technique. But they always met us where we were and always got us to where we needed to be. And it was just really inspiring to see them work with different people. And it was life changing, honestly, really life changing.
Leah Roseman:
So when you went to Carnegie, was it in a choir?
Vahn Black:
Yes, it was actually with the Ladies ensemble at Detroit School of Arts, the Lady Achievers. And we were one of the headlining children's choirs, children's youth choirs. And so it's like you sing and then there's some other choirs that are featured and then you sing together with other choirs in the honors choir.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. And was that your first time to New York when you went to that trip?
Vahn Black:
Yeah, actually that was my very first time in New York. It was very exciting because I had never, at school, we'd gone on these HBCU, these Historically Black College university tours throughout the South on a bus, but I had never really seen a big city before outside of Detroit. So it was really exciting, a little bit overwhelming. We had so much fun. It was really fun. Very memorable.
Leah Roseman:
I had read somewhere that you consider yourself a memory worker in terms of preserving Black culture. Did you also study library science?
Vahn Black:
Yeah, I'm actually in library school right now working my way through. I'll be so happy when I'm done. But yeah, I'm currently in a program at this moment working towards my MLIS, and it is very enriching and very fun, for lack of better words, to finally learn about the things that I've wanted to do for so long and expand on the concepts that I've been reading about for so long and being able to put words to some things that I've been doing or been seeing.
Leah Roseman:
Do you have any thoughts on the way AI is impacting research?
Vahn Black:
Yes, it's interesting. We've been talking about that, and I think the big thing is AI is harmful, which it can be, all things can be harmful, but I think as it grows and expands, it will be more helpful, especially with younger people learning how to do things with ai. It could possibly make them better researchers and help them think in different ways that maybe they weren't thinking before. But then at the same time, if they're not taught how to properly use these things, it could also make them not think as hard as they could and rely on AI a bit too much. But I think the future of AI could be really bright and it could be used for some really great things. We just have to figure out how to work the ethics out, make it ethically good, because I think that's a big part of what makes it hard to like AI. For some people, the ethics are kind of shoddy sometimes.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. I read an article recently, I think it was the editorial in the Walrus magazine, a Canadian magazine, and they were saying that I wasn't aware of this. These new search engines based on AI will give you a summary of what you're looking for, but there'll be no sources, so you can't go back to the links. Right?
Vahn Black:
Yeah. It gives you so many things and it's like, where did you get it from though? It's like it just takes everything and it makes a big meatloaf, but it doesn't give you the ingredients and the meatloaf is good, but I want to know how to make it. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
So when you did your undergrad, was it in jazz? Was it in, what was your specialty?
Vahn Black:
In undergrad, I just studied general vocal performance, and at the time it was mostly classical. I did some musical theater as well. That program is actually expanding right now, so they're doing more things outside of the classical realm, which is really great. But yeah, I was mostly doing that and I was such a slight brat because I was like, I love this, but can I not do another Italian aria? I would love to not do another Italian aria. I would love to not sing in German for one time. And at some point I asked enough to where they were like, okay, alright, we're trying to build a composition track anyway, do the composition track, and they let me do my senior recital with all original compositions, and I was so excited. I was like, oh my gosh, I've been freed from German dialect. It's awesome. So yeah, the classical music was still a really big part of my degree process. But yeah, I sprinkled in some other things.
Leah Roseman:
Very cool. Good for you. So this final recital, what style were your songs in at that point?
Vahn Black:
It was mostly Soul things, very inspired by music technology and electronic music. I did a lot of live looping with my vocals. I used the iPad to do some chord programming and some drum programming and stuff. I didn't have a drummer, I just did not have a drummer. Couldn't find one at that time for some reason. But I was doing drum programming and synth and stuff like that, just trying to pull together some of the influences outside of school.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. Now you've submitted to NPRs Tiny Desk a couple of times, really great videos. And also you are featured in On the Road series. They had a sort of a Block party.
Vahn Black:
Yeah, actually they had a Block party in Atlanta, and it was a part of the tour that they do with the winners. So the winners go on tour and in every city they have the different acts that submit it and they choose a few and they open up for the winners. And so we were chosen and that was super exciting. It's honestly probably one of the biggest shows that I played to date, and it was just such a great experience being outside. It was too hot, but nice and sunny and so many people came out and I got to meet so many of the people who submitted and who were performing, and they were all really great. It was great to just connect with so many good Atlanta artists and perform with a band. I don't get to perform with a band often, and it was just a really great experience just being able to bring all them together. We all went to high school together, and so it was a really nice moment to just be able to bring them all to Atlanta and just come together and make music for once.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. That's interesting about the band, that video Care Too Much that was just released a couple of months ago, right?
Vahn Black:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Would we be able to edit that into this episode or would you rather just use it?
Vahn Black:
Yeah, yeah, you can use that.
Leah Roseman:
This is “Care Too Much” one of Vahn Black’s tiny desk concert submissions and the video on her YouTube is linked in the description of this podcast (music)
There's this trumpet player you work with?
Vahn Black:
Trunino Lowe. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Helps you with the arrangements or are you doing all the arrangements?
Vahn Black:
He does the arrangements. There are some things, I have some ideas and I'll send him the track and he's like, that's actually nice. And I'm like, no, you can change it. So 98% of it is his own arrangement. It's his wonderful brain.
Leah Roseman:
Okay, nice. Now I've heard you do some stuff online, incredible performances of spirituals. In fact, you have a track out right? As well?
Vahn Black:
Yeah, I recently did a cover of I've Been Buked,
Leah Roseman:
So are you going to release an album of spirituals or maybe
Vahn Black:
Something might be happening,
Leah Roseman:
And I think you were singing with a baritone ukulele.
Vahn Black:
Yeah, so on that track I was actually with my regular semi hollow six string guitar, but I have been playing a lot of baritone lately. So
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I saw something with you doing that. I mean, you play a number of instruments, right? Keyboard and
Vahn Black:
Yeah, not so much piano. I knew enough to graduate, but yeah, mostly strings like guitar, bass, ukuleles, stuff like that. Okay. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Let's talk about your vinyl collection.
Vahn Black:
Yes, my vinyl collection. Oh my gosh, okay. So I started getting serious about vinyl collecting maybe in 2018 or 2019 or somewhere in between there. The first records I ever received were inherited from my father. When he passed, there was a big box of records and my mom gave them to me and was like, here's your dad's records. And I was like, what am I supposed to do with this? And I just went through the boxes and we had a record player in the house, and I listened to so many of 'em, and I got familiar with Duke Ellington, BB King, and yeah, I was like, wow, records are cool. Never really did much with them. Those first listening started when I was like 10 years old, never did much with the records. Fast forward to 2018, I was working in my college's music library and they were cleaning up house.
They had a lot of old things and the library was stacked with records and the administrative assistant was like, Hey, clean out these things, organize them also, you can have whatever you see. And I was like, Ooh, stuff. I don't have a record player of my own, but I'll take you up on that. So I went through, I kept some things. That's when I got really into Folkways records. So I took on a lot of Folkways, records set 'em aside, didn't do much with them. I left on my records in Georgia when I moved to New York, when I came back and I figured I was staying, I was like, let me organize these. I started organizing them reading stuff, and I was like, I know I love albums and I collected CDs, but records are even cooler. The information you get on them, being able to fill them, the information that you get on the record itself, knowing which pressing it was. And so I found a flea market near me, and out of curiosity, I just went in and I started looking at stuff. And long story short, I got obsessed. And now I'm at a large number of records, not large enough, but I'm at a large number of records and I continue to collect record national record store days this weekend and I'm going to be there. And yeah, I've said a lot, but yes, that's a little bit about my record collection.
Leah Roseman:
Well, I have more questions. How are you cataloging them or organizing them?
Vahn Black:
So I organize them by last name, so it's not organized by genre or anything. So I do last name. If it's an artist, that's just one name, prints that will go with the peas and yeah, that's the way I organize 'em, right? I'm considering maybe when I grow my collection even more. I think now I'm at around 200. So if I get above 400, 500, maybe I'll do a genre situation, but it's so small right now that I just, it's easier by last name.
Leah Roseman:
Do you wash your records? Do you have the whole thing going?
Vahn Black:
I am actually planning on investing in a record cleaner very soon. I need to do that because especially the things that I get, most of the things I get, I have my selected stores that I go to and they take really good care of the records that they bring in. So I haven't really had to do much lately, but the things I got from my dad, oh boy, they need some care. So I'm definitely going to be getting a record cleaner soon.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, my partner, he's really into that and he built, I can send you, I think he made something that was cheaper than what you could buy, but it's like this whole system and it makes such a difference.
Vahn Black:
That's awesome.
Leah Roseman:
When you get these, actually pretty much any record that's been lying around that's not brand new. When you clean it, it's quite amazing. And I never knew you could wash records. I grew up with LPs and no one was washing records back then.
Vahn Black:
It was just here's the record and it works. Yeah, yeah, it's amazing because I mean, you think a record is unplayable, but then you wash it and it's a whole new world. If you can't build the scratch, you're fine. Just wash it.
Leah Roseman:
So have you had any cool discoveries, like artists you didn't know about before that you've bought records?
Vahn Black:
Yes, I'm a Big Prince fan, but at some point I didn't know about his posse. And one day I went to Wax and Facts in Atlanta and I was going through the funk and soul section and I saw this pink record in a clear case. I was like, it's hot pink. What is this? And why does this man have a Jerry Curl and why does he look like Prince? And so I bought it, I took it home, I played it. I was like, this sounds like Prince. This is weird. I looked it up and I was like, oh, Jesse Johnson, who is this? And I learned who Jesse Johnson was and how him and Prince had this mini feud and all of that. So that was very exciting and it took me down a rabbit hole of the revolution and all of Prince's eras and the band members and stuff like that. So that's got to be one of the most exciting things that I found outside of the Folk Ways records that I find and the musicians that they chose to record for the field recordings and stuff like that.
Leah Roseman:
So who was Jesse Johnson?
Vahn Black:
So Jesse Johnson, I believe he was Prince's guitarist. I forget the years. This is so bad. I'm such a bad Prince fan. But he was his guitarist at some point, and I think it was Purple Rain era maybe. And at some point I believe they had a falling out and he wasn't in the band anymore. I think Prince got a new band, and if I'm not mistaken, prince, he kind of did a thing where some artists, it was like suggestions. You should do this, you should do that. Or he produced them or he would co-produce with them. And so a lot of things, like the time, a lot of things came out with that min sound, or they just seemed pretty close to something that Prince would do. So the Jesse Johnson situation and the aesthetic from the early eighties or mid eighties or whatever time period is kind of like a result of that.
Leah Roseman:
I was just thinking about Smithsonian Folkways. I'm actually quite grateful to them because I interviewed Verna Gillis and she was one of these people going into the field and recording music in Africa and the Caribbean and United States and all over, and we were able to use some of those tracks in my episode with her of these field recordings she'd made. That
Vahn Black:
Is so awesome. I love that. I love Folkways so much. I'm grateful for them too. And there's so much that I continue to learn every year, every month, every time I go record shopping, and I love it. Love it.
Leah Roseman:
Do you think cassettes are going to come back?
Vahn Black:
They're trying, and I don't believe in it. They're trying. I know a lot of bands are releasing cassettes and selling them pretty cheap. That's like the incentive to buy them, but they're not even selling cassette players.
Leah Roseman:
That is the problem.
Vahn Black:
I mean, you can buy a record player with a cassette player on it, but why would you do that? I don't know. They're trying. It's funny, I actually bought a cassette a few months ago just because I like to have any kind of physical copy of an album. I prefer records, but if it's a physical copy, I'll get it just to say I have it because I also have this secret fear of one day digital streaming platforms will die and I need to have all of my music. So I went to a flea market and I actually found a cassette of Tracy Chapman's new beginning. So I bought it. I don't know what it sounds like. The time I bought a cassette before that was Stevie Wonders other than July, and it sounded terrible. So
Leah Roseman:
Maybe it had gotten stretched. I mean, from what I understand, tapes are actually very good archives, much better than CDs, which can so easily be scratched.
Vahn Black:
Oh yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. Who knows? And maybe because they're safer than CDs and can't get scratched, maybe they will come back and be as popular as vinyl.
Leah Roseman:
I know what you mean by the streaming services. Of course, there's so much that's wrong about the way musicians aren't compensated. But also, I mean, they decide what goes out there and what they might take off and people think, oh, everything that's been recorded is digitized. It's not.
Vahn Black:
Yeah, it's not. I think it's cool. And also unfortunate how much we rely on digital streaming platforms. I'm kind of grateful for it because there's so much that I've discovered and rediscovered, I don't have access to certain CDs or the physical copies don't exist anymore at the same time. It's like money and access and rights, and so it's a torn kind of thing.
Leah Roseman:
So back to your Gladys Bentley project. So there was another track I particularly loved, we talked about too soon, Lucid Dreams as well.
Vahn Black:
Yeah, Lucid Dreams is actually one of the first things that I wrote for the project. I wrote it I think in 2020. And yeah, I really wanted to write a song about memory and just how sometimes when you research something and learn about something, things can feel very real to you and you feel like you're there and you wish you were there. And that's kind how I feel about when I read about the Harlem Renaissance and different people who are around Gladys Bentley and just listening to her work. So yeah, I really wanted to make a song and embodied those feelings.
Leah Roseman:
This is Lucid Dreams from the album Petrichor (Music)
In terms of this Gladys Bentley project, you had planned a couple more albums. Are you still going to go there?
Vahn Black:
Yeah, the plan is there. There's something I actually want to release in the fall called Walk in the Rain, which is basically representative of Gladys going through the changes that she talked about in the article, going through the feelings that she was having of feeling alone and how everything had changed from everything being really good and being at the top of the world to her not being able to get booked for shows and people not showing up to those shows, and her lovers may be leaving her. So that project is going to cover that. And then the last one, I want to be about the newfound joys that she claims in the article, her living her life in her new body and her new minds and her new liberation to say. So yeah, I plan, I intend to keep those things happen. Who knows? But that's my intention is to keep on going.
Leah Roseman:
And will you be hiring more of a band or is it going to be more self doing the different layers?
Vahn Black:
Yeah, it's a mix. I love live music. Love it, love it, love it. It's just been challenging coordinating with people and things of that nature. But these next few projects are definitely more other human oriented. It's not just me. I can do the things and I enjoy doing the things, but it's not out of control or it's not out of just wanting to do that. To some extent, it's kind of out of necessity. So it's the hope and the plan is definitely to work with more instrumentalists and musicians, so it's come.
Leah Roseman:
Great. And we had talked a little bit about playlists, and these are concept albums, and many of your listeners, you have lots and lots of streams. They're just hearing maybe a track that's on a separate playlist. It's part of the deal, right?
Vahn Black:
Yeah, it happens. I think about that a lot. I'm like, dang, they just hearing this one song. But that's fine, as long as they feel the feelings out of the one. If people visit the original work, that's great. If they don't, it's whatever. They're still experiencing it and gaining something out of it. To me, the most important thing is if people gain something from it. So it's whatever
Leah Roseman:
You talked about when you're in school, learning arias in different languages, and I find it when I listen to a song in another language, the emotions there. If the singer's doing a good job, you don't really need to understand the poetry.
Vahn Black:
Yeah, absolutely. That's something that really drew me to, I don't know, for lack of better terms, world music. When I was younger in high school, I started listening to a lot of music from Egypt and a lot of music from East Africa, and I was like, I don't know what they're saying, but I'm feeling all of the emotions. I'm here with them. And it really taught me a lot about painting a song, telling the story through your voice, using dynamics. If you can see somebody using your face, using your body, you can definitely learn a lot from listening to songs in different languages. It's so helpful.
Leah Roseman:
So you know you wanted to be a singer, even when you were thinking you might be teaching primarily to earn your living, was that still your identity as a singer?
Vahn Black:
Oh yeah. It was always the plan to be a singer. It's just when I got to high school and I was talking to my counselor and she was getting my schedule together, I was like, I'm going to go to Amda for musical theater and I'm going to be a singing star. And she was like, you need a real job. And I was like, well, okay, noted. Guess I'm going to be a music teacher. So it's like it was something I was passionate about, but I also was out practicality, so I always knew that I was going to be a singer and be an artist and do my own thing. It was just a matter of, as people say now, being able to pay for that, being able to pay for that different part of my life and my creative journey.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. When you were in New York, were you doing music?
Vahn Black:
Yeah, I actually went to New York to do a program where I was teaching in a public school in Queens. So that mostly took up my time. I probably only did two solo performances while I was in New York. I was trying to figure out how to really get in there, get out there on the scene, but it never really materialized and I was only there for nine months.
Leah Roseman:
What was it like in that school working with the kids?
Vahn Black:
There were a lot of fun times. It was fun. I enjoyed my students, I missed them a lot sometimes, but teachers are not treated well. They're not paid well enough. There's not enough in place to, in my opinion, protect them from certain things. And so being able to experience that was really interesting. And it definitely gave me even more respect for my choir teachers and my other teachers in general that I really liked and the ones who inspired me. So there were a lot of ups and downs, but the joys I still carry with me and they were very helpful. It was a helpful experience.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. So do you have creative outlets outside of music?
Vahn Black:
Yes, I do a lot of things because I have too much energy, but I actually am a fiber artist. I mean, I don't know if I can call myself fiber artist, but I enjoy crocheting, knitting tapestry sometimes, but I'm a big time crocheter. I'm crocheting every day all the time, multitasking, crocheting. It's my life. I have so much yarn. It's embarrassing.
Leah Roseman:
Are you selling some of your fiber art?
Vahn Black:
No. No. I always fear if I decide to start selling it, I'll hate it. And my peace is in working with yarn and I want to keep it that way.
Leah Roseman:
I was looking at different fiber artists because I am releasing an album with my band Collected Strands and because of the name of our band, and I was trying to find some art that would go with that, so I was connecting with people, and so it was just cool. When you look up fiber art, the things that come up, people make fiber with paper, but it's different than paper art. It's very interesting. All the things.
Vahn Black:
Yeah, it's a wide world. That's why I was like, I don't know if I can call myself a fiber artist, but it's such a wide range of things. It's all the way from people who make a me roomy, little stuffed crochet animals to people who, like you said, make stuff with paper. It is really cool.
Leah Roseman:
And I found people doing crochet stuff where it's like plants, miniature plants. But out of crochet,
Vahn Black:
I actually made a few plants. I made my partner a bouquet of flowers. I crocheted some those. It's the succulent, the pearl succulent. I crocheted some of those and I try to do some, oh, I do some bookmarks. I do sunflower bookmarks with the leaf. Oh my God, it's so much fun.
Leah Roseman:
Do your own patterns or are you always going off somebody else's
Vahn Black:
Pattern? I do my own. My friends always talk. They're like, she does not want to follow a pattern. I'm like, I don't. It's just so much focus and I like to zone out when I crochet or just listen to an audio book and I feel like I'm reading a pattern. I can't really do my own thing. So if something is really cool, I'll follow a pattern, but I can't say the last time a follow a pattern, I just kind of forget.
Leah Roseman:
Well, I know a good podcast you can listen to while you crochet.
Vahn Black:
Yeah. Yeah. I'll be listening.
Leah Roseman:
So just a couple more things. First of all, I'm always curious about people's creative process, especially if you're an improviser, and where that crosses over into recording your ideas and working it out.
Vahn Black:
So it depends on the day or how I'm feeling. At some point, I was mostly in my car on the freeway and I'm like, Ooh, idea record. But I haven't recorded a voice memo since February. It's really strange. And lately my mode of laying down ideas has been just picking up ukulele and typing the chords and typing the words. And for some reason I just remember, or I just immediately go straight to Ableton and just record it in Ableton. But it's pretty random. I could be reading something and I'm just like, I like that word. I'm going to sing that word and sing that word. Or it could be something like, I really enjoy sampling. I like loops, so I could hear a nice loop. And I'm like, no, no, cool. Let's use this loop. So it's pretty random. It depends on the day.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. That's great. I am always curious about generating ideas and building on creativity. Which brings me to my final question. We started with the Gladys Bentley project. Now as a songwriters particularly, you need inspiration, you're writing lyrics. So do you already have ideas? Do you have an idea book for the projects after that or around that or other historical figures?
Vahn Black:
Yes, actually I should keep a book, but I actually have a nice amount of projects planned around different figures, and it kind of just starts off with me usually reading a history about something or looking through somebody's archives and I'm like, I want to tell this story. I want to do this, I want to do that. So I'll type something down, I write something down, and yeah, I try to add as much detail as I can initially, and then I'll get ideas along the way and I'll come back to it a few months later and write some more ideas and then I'll revisit it. Yeah. So yeah, it is to some extent kind of like an idea book and just coming back to whenever it feels right.
Leah Roseman:
Wonderful. So thanks so much for this today and for sharing your music as well.
Vahn Black:
Thank you for having me. It was great talking to you.
Leah Roseman:
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Pleased to share this with your friends and check out episodes you may have missed at leahroseman.com. If you could buy me a coffee to support the series, that would be wonderful. The link is in the description. Have a wonderful week.
