Marlena Shaw

Marlina Burgess (22 September 1939 – 19 January 2024; New Rochelle, New York, United States), professionally known as Marlena Shaw, was an American jazz, soul and R&B vocalist whose genre-crossing career and much-sampled recordings made her one of the most enduringly influential singers of her generation.

Early Life

Shaw was born in New Rochelle, New York, and was introduced to music as a child by her grandmother and, most formatively, by her uncle, jazz trumpeter Jimmy Burgess, who filled the family home with records by Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Al Hibbler and gospel artists.

In 1952, Burgess brought the young Shaw on stage at Harlem's Apollo Theater to sing with his band, though her mother, wary of her touring at such a young age, kept her off the road with her uncle afterwards. Shaw enrolled at the New York State Teachers College in Potsdam, now the State University of New York at Potsdam, to study music, though she later left before completing her studies, and her professional ambitions were later rekindled while she was living on an Air Force base near Springfield, Massachusetts, where friends encouraged her to audition for local club dates.

Career

Shaw spent the early 1960s singing in jazz clubs whenever her schedule allowed, including a notable stint in 1963 with trumpeter Howard McGhee, and endured a disappointing, nerve-driven audition that year for Columbia talent scout John Hammond.

Her fortunes turned in 1966 when a residency with the Playboy Club chain in Chicago led to her audition for, and signing with, the legendary Count Basie Orchestra; at her first rehearsal, at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, Basie welcomed her by telling her to save her voice for the show ahead.

That same period brought her into contact with Chess Records, and she signed to its Cadet subsidiary, scoring an early hit with a vocal rendition of Cannonball Adderley's "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" before releasing her full-length Cadet debut, Out of Different Bags, in 1967. Her second and final Cadet album, The Spice of Life (1969), yielded two of her best-known recordings: "Woman of the Ghetto", a socially conscious song she co-wrote in the vein of contemporaries like Marvin Gaye and the Temptations, and her version of Ashford & Simpson's "California Soul", which went on to become a cornerstone of the UK rare groove scene, was certified gold in the United Kingdom, featured in television commercials for Dockers, KFC and Dodge Ram trucks, and has been sampled more than thirty times by artists including Gang Starr, Nightmares on Wax, the Stereo MCs and Jay Electronica, as well as remixed by Diplo.

In 1972 Shaw left Chess for Blue Note Records, becoming the label's first female vocalist under contract, and released a run of acclaimed albums including Marlena (1972), From the Depths of My Soul (1973), the live album Marlena Shaw Live at Montreux (1974), Who Is This Bitch, Anyway? (1975), which reached number eight on the Billboard Jazz chart, and Just a Matter of Time (1976).

She moved to Columbia Records for Sweet Beginnings (1977), which became her highest-charting album, featuring "Look at Me, Look at You," another rare groove favourite, and a medley built around the Goffin and King standard "Go Away Little Boy"; that year she also recorded the theme song "Don't Ask to Stay Until Tomorrow" for the film Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and released a disco-era reworking of "Touch Me in the Morning". Her Columbia era continued with Acting Up (1978) and Take a Bite (1979). In 1982 she recorded Gary Taylor's ballad "Without You in My Life" for the album Let Me in Your Life on South Bay Records, jointly produced by Johnny Bristol and Webster Lewis, which achieved moderate US chart success, and in 1983 she supplied vocals to "Could It Be You" on guitarist Phil Upchurch's album Name of the Game.

In 1987 she signed to Verve Records, whose relaunch was aided by her live album It Is Love: Recorded Live at Vine St., which reached number seven on the Jazz chart. Shaw continued to tour and record for decades afterwards, performing at the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands in 1999, 2001 and 2007, and remained a beloved live performer, celebrated for her wit and vocal range, into the 2000s.

Personal Life

Shaw was the mother of five children; her daughter, Marla Bradshaw, later became a prominent voice in preserving and sharing her mother's legacy. In her later years, Shaw made her home in the Las Vegas area, the same city where her career-defining association with Count Basie had begun decades earlier.

Her influence reaches well beyond her own recordings: through the enduring popularity of "California Soul" and "Woman of the Ghetto" among hip-hop producers and DJs from the 1990s onward, Shaw introduced her voice and songwriting to generations of listeners who discovered her through sampled fragments of her work, cementing her reputation as one of the most sampled vocalists in popular music.

Shaw died on 19 January 2024, at the age of eighty-four, at her home in the Las Vegas, Nevada, area; her family did not disclose a specific cause of death, describing her passing as peaceful.