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Boston's 'Queen of Soul and Blues' brings 'Faith' to new album
Long before she became known as “Boston’s Queen of Soul and Blues,” Toni Lynn Washington was a little girl singing gospel songs while doing chores with her grandmother. And before her international touring career took off, she sang in the choir at St. John Missionary Baptist Church in Roxbury.
But when sitting backstage at a local charity event, Boston musician Brian Templeton suggested she record a gospel record, she was surprised. “I thought he was out of his mind,” she recalls. “I said ‘You want me to do a what?’”
Washington said yes and the result is “Faith,” out this weekend — which also happens to coincide with her 87th birthday on Dec. 6. It’s yet another chapter in a story for the Southern Pines, North Carolina native who as a young girl moved to Boston’s South End, sang for the troops in Vietnam, and has been nominated for multiple Blues Music Awards. The album finds Washington’s warm and sincere vocals just as good a fit for gospel as they’ve been for the blues and jazz that she’s been singing for decades.
Templeton, who produced the album, says he had the idea after realizing that, despite a live performance schedule that would be the envy of artists a quarter her age, Washington’s last release had come out in 2015. Not only did he think she was overdue for a return to the studio, but he wanted to, as he told Washington, “take you out of your comfort zone a little bit.’”
“I've known him since he was a young fellow, and I know what his capabilities are. So I just put my faith in him,” Washington says. Templeton is a gutsy singer himself, playing harmonica locally first as a member of the Radio Kings and now as part of the Delta Generators and a bicoastal all-star group called the Proven Ones.
The new release includes a handful of gospel chestnuts: “Just a Closer Walk With Thee?,” “Down by the Riverside” as well as a song Washington used to sing at St. John: “I’m Going Up to Heaven to See the King.” Many of the other nine tracks are covers of obscure cuts by vintage gospel artists like Shirley Ann Lee and the Salem Travelers, whose "Games People Play" was cut during that storied quartet’s funky 1970s period.
“They were pretty much all new to me,” says Washington. But she felt they all reflected her personal spiritual beliefs. Even though she’s not currently a church member, “I decided to just serve [God] from my heart. I'm still a believer and I think God is still blessing me and he's watching over me.”
Then there are some true curveballs like ZZ Top’s “Jesus Just Left Chicago.”
“I thought how cool it would be to have Toni Lynn Washington, Boston's Queen of the Blues, covering ZZ Top?” laughs Templeton. The song includes a scorching guitar solo from “Monster” Mike Welch. “It's straight blues and so I was able to stay in her neighborhood and let her do what she does best.”
Templeton also wanted to include something from Bob Dylan’s "Christian period."
“I played a bunch of them for Toni Lynn and the one she really liked was ‘Are You Ready,’ which again is really a blues song,” says Templeton. Going into the studio, he thought the typically wordy Dylan song, with lines like “Are you ready for Armageddon?” would be a challenge for someone used to singing more standard blues fare. “But as usual, she rose to the occasion,” he says.
There’s one more familiar song, but it’s usually known as a secular tune: Percy Mayfield’s “Please Send Me Someone to Love.” Washington’s longtime guitarist Mike Williams suggested it, saying he’d always wanted to hear how she would sing it. “And if you listen to the live version, Mayfield starts out by saying it is a prayer for peace,” Templeton points out.
The album concept quickly found a home at Regina Royale Records, the local label founded by Diane Blue, the lead singer of Ronnie Earl & the Broadcasters. (Washington’s last album was Regina Royale’s first release.) But financing proved to be a challenge, even after a GoFundMe campaign. The 29 top-shelf Boston blues musicians and singers who appear on it all donated their time. In addition to the three core bands, vocalist Kit Holliday arranged a small choir of background singers.
Blue says it was easy to find members of the Boston blues community who wanted to play on the album “because of how much we respect her and love her, and not just because she's still hanging around, but because she still brings it,” Blue says. “She's an awesomely talented woman and she can command an audience like no one I know, and I constantly learn from watching her and listening to her.”
Templeton concurs. “She's an extremely warm, friendly person with no ego.”
And it’s with that modesty that Washington demurs when asked about how she’s constantly mentoring younger artists.
“I have to let them know that this is something that they have to feel,” she says. “It's not something that you just learn. You have to make sure you do yourself and don't try to copy anybody else.”
“Faith” will be released in December. An album release and birthday celebration with Toni Lynn Washington and many of the musicians on the album will take place at the Hopkinton Center for the Arts on Dec. 8 at 3 p.m.
