Eli Yamin - So You Want to Sing the Blues: A Guide for Performers

So You Want to Sing the Blues

So You Want to Sing

Guides for Performers and Professionals

A Project of the National Association of Teachers of Singing

So You Want to Sing: Guides for Performers and Professionals is a series of works devoted to providing a complete survey of what it means to sing within a particular genre. Each contribution functions as a touchstone work not only for professional singers but also for students and teachers of singing. Titles in the series offer a common set of topics so readers can navigate easily the various genres addressed in each volume. This series is produced under the direction of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, the leading professional organization devoted to the science and art of singing.

So You Want to Sing Music Theater: A Guide for Professionals , by Karen S. Hall, 2013

So You Want to Sing Rock n Roll: A Guide for Professionals , by Matthew Edwards, 2014

So You Want to Sing Jazz: A Guide for Professionals , by Jan Shapiro, 2015

So You Want to Sing Country: A Guide for Performers , by Kelly K. Garner, 2016

So You Want to Sing Gospel: A Guide for Performers , by Trineice Robinson-Martin, 2016

So You Want to Sing Sacred Music: A Guide for Performers , edited by Matthew Hoch, 2017

So You Want to Sing Folk Music: A Guide for Performers , by Valerie Mindel, 2017

So You Want to Sing Barbershop: A Guide for Performers, by Diane M. Clarke & Billy J. Biffle, 2017

So You Want to Sing A Cappella: A Guide for Performers , by Deke Sharon, 2017

So You Want to Sing Light Opera: A Guide for Performers , by Linda Lister, 2018

So You Want to Sing CCM (Contemporary Commercial Music): A Guide for Performers , edited by Matthew Hoch, 2018

So You Want to Sing for a Lifetime: A Guide for Performers , by Brenda Smith, 2018

So You Want to Sing the Blues: A Guide for Performers , by Eli Yamin, 2018

So You Want to Sing the Blues

A Guide for Performers

Eli Yamin

Allen Henderson

Executive Editor, NATS

Matthew Hoch

Series Editor

A Project of the National Association of Teachers of Singing

Rowman & Littlefield

Lanham Boulder New York London

Published by Rowman & Littlefield

An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

www.rowman.com

Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB

Copyright 2018 by Eli Yamin

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Yamin, Eli, author.

Title: So you want to sing the blues : a guide for performers / Eli Yamin.

Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. | Series: So you want to sing | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018013704 (print) | LCCN 2018014130 (ebook) | ISBN 9781442267046 (electronic) | ISBN 9781442267039 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: SingingInstruction and study. | Blues (Music)Instruction and study.

Classification: LCC MT820 (ebook) | LCC MT820 .Y36 2018 (print) | DDC 783/.0643143dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018013704

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Series Editors Foreword

S o You Want to Sing the Blues: A Guide for Performers is the thirteenth book in the NATS/Rowman & Littlefield So You Want to Sing series and the tenth book to fall under my editorship. For this title, we have engaged blues singer and pedagogue Eli Yamin, who travels internationally performing and presenting workshops to both experienced blues musicians as well as newcomers to the style. He brings decades of experience singing and teaching the blues to these chapters, and his wisdom is evident throughout this volume.

While some topics in the So You Want to Sing series present us with dozens of prospective authors from which we must pick, the blues is a genre that seems to exist somewhat separately from the traditional voice-teaching community. In conversation with NATS colleagues, I initially had difficulty identifying who would be the right author for this book. Then one day, my friend and colleague Jeannette LoVetri gave me the answer: Eli Yamin. Jeanie could not have been more correct, and these pages you are about to read resoundingly affirm that Eli Yamin is the perfect author for this topic.

During the first year of our correspondence, Eli and I communicated with each other only via phone and e-mail. Then, at the NATS national conference in Chicago in 2016, I had the opportunity to meet Eli in person for the first time. Experiencing him live was a transforming experience: Eli doesnt just sing the blues and write about the blueshe lives the blues. The genre completely inhabits him. While reading these pages and exploring Elis online resources, I truly feel as if he is in the room talking to me. His excitement is contagious.

Like other books in the series, there are several common chapters that are included across multiple titles. These chapters include a chapter on voice science by Scott McCoy, one on vocal health by Wendy LeBorgne, and one on using audio enhancement technology by Matthew Edwards. These chapters help to bind the series together, ensuring consistency of fact when it comes to the most essential matters of voice production.

The collected volumes of the So You Want to Sing series offer a valuable opportunity for performers and teachers of singing to explore new styles and important pedagogies. I am confident that voice specialists, both amateur and professional, will benefit from Eli Yamins important resource on singing the blues. It has been a privilege to work with him on this project. This book is an invaluable resource for performers who are interested in adding the blues to their stylistic vocabulary.

Matthew Hoch

Acknowledgments

T hank you to Walter Perkins, Joe the bartender, Gwen Cleveland, Bross Townsend, C. I. Williams, John Dooley, and everyone else at the Skylark Lounge for your welcome and helping me become a professional bluesman.

Thank you to Amiri Baraka, author of the seminal work Blues People , and Amina Baraka for taking me under your wings when I first came to Newark, New Jersey, as a teenager. I am so grateful for the lessons I received at the Barakas house listening to music and performing and receiving their encouragement in their basement club, Kimakos Blues People.

Thank you to my friends and mentors at WBGO/Jazz 88 and the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers Newark and the worlds you opened up to me: Dorthaan Kirk, Wylie Rollins, Rhonda Hamilton, James Browne, Michael Anderson, Michael Bourne, Chico Mendoza, Becca Pulliam, Richard Skelly, Duke Markos, Alfredo Cruz, Felix Hernandez, Dan Morgenstern, Ed Berger, Vincent Pelote, Loren Schoenberg, Gary Walker, and Bob Porter, with whom I had the distinct honor and good fortune to produce Portraits in Blue, a weekly look at great American artists of black music.

Thank you to the members of my blues band for the miles we have traveled and the hearts we have touched: Bob Stewart, Kate McGarry, LaFrae Sci, Howard Johnson, Charenee Wade, Ben Stapp, Chanell Crichlow, Antoinette Montague, and Dwayne Cook Broadnax.