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Singing the praises of Jackie Shane

(July 1, 2020) With museums being such a part of the news lately, especially with regard to their point of view and operations , we were excited to hear about Myseum in Toronto that exists to “showcase the diversity of the city’s past and present.” It says, “Myseum of Toronto is not just one place, it’s every place in the city. You can experience Myseum programs all year long at exhibits, online, and at pop-up events around the GTA.” Oh, what fun we had, going through their website and discovering more about the names that may have flickered around the corners of our memories, but can now arrive fully formed with with dates, photos and historical context. Jackie Shane was one of those flickering names, now brought to light, a transgender soul singer from Nashville who came to Toronto to pursue her musical career in 1959, filling night clubs and churning out hit singles until 1971. Myseum reminds us that history is full people you’d like to share a soda with — musicians, artists, journalists, athletes and others who were often singular in their accomplishments. There are so many, please visit Myseum to get all the stories. But today, we focus on Jackie Shane.

 “Jackie Shane, the American-born soul singer and possibly the first transgender musician to hit the charts in Canada and the United States combined the frenetic pace of rock and roll with the soulful energy of R&B to become one of the city’s most memorable performers of the 1960s.” (Myseum)
“Around 1959, Shane emigrated to Toronto, where she wore wigs and makeup onstage and off — typically paired with fur, silk or sequins. In front of rapt nightclub audiences, when she sang with husky, quavering verve, or turned interstitial monologues into febrile, secular sermons, she was exhibiting a kind of radical transparency.” (New York Times)
“Partnering with fellow American musician Frank Motley, known for playing two trumpets at once, Shane recorded a series of singles, including her most famous hit, “Any Other Way”. At its peak, the single hit position #2 on the local CHUM radio charts.” (Myseum)
Advertisements for two separate Jackie Shane shows in Toronto that appeared in the Toronto Daily Star, Toronto Star Photograph Archive, Courtesy of Toronto Public Library (Myseum)
“Soul singer Joe Tex encouraged her to leave the American South and pursue her musical career, so she began playing gigs in Boston, Montreal and eventually Toronto. It was in the latter city, which had a budding R&B scene in the Sixties, that she found her audience. Shane packed nightclubs in Toronto in the 1960s and appeared on local music TV show Night Train.” (Rolling Stone)
“Shane covered songs like “Money (That’s What I Want),” ″You Are My Sunshine” and “Any Other Way,” and put out singles and a live album but never recorded a studio album, stating that she distrusted music labels.” (Rolling Stone)
“Jackie was a revelation,” according to Grammy-award winning musicologist Rob Bowman. “Quite quickly the black audience in Toronto embraced her. Within a couple of years, Jackie’s audiences were 50-50 white and black.” (Billboard)
“Shane’s connection to her mother was so strong that ultimately it led Shane to leave show business in 1971. Her mother’s husband died and Shane didn’t want to leave her mother living alone. But she also felt a bit exhausted by the pace.  She cared for her mother until her death in 1997.”(Billboard)
After years of searching, Douglas Mcgowan, an A&R scout for archival record label Numero Group found Jackie Shane living in in Nashville, Tennessee, where she was born in 1940. He worked with her to produce a remarkable two-CD set of her live and studio recordings that was released in 2017 called Any Other Way, It was nominated for a Grammy in the historical recording category in 2018 (Billboard)
“Jackie Shane passed away in Nashville in February 2019. Grammy-winning York University professor Rob Bowman who spent spent dozens of hours on the phone with Shane interviewing her for the liner notes in the album. Her story, Bowman says, is so remarkable that even Hollywood couldn’t dream it up.”  (Billboard)
Jackie Shane: May 15, 1940 – February 22, 2019
Jackie Shane is featured in a 22-storey musical mural on the north side of 423 Yonge Street; From top to bottom: Ronnie Hawkins, Glenn Gould, Diane Brooks, Jackie Shane and Muddy Waters, Shirley Matthews, B.B. King, Gordon Lightfoot and Oscar Peterson. (Rob Bowman)

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