MUSICIAN ANN HAMPTON CALLAWAY WEAVES MANY INFLUENCES INTO HER STYLE

By MARIO TARRADELL Music Critic [email protected] 08:41 AM CST on Thursday, November 6, 2008

Ann Hampton Callaway speaks in breathless tones. Not because she's in a hurry to finish a sentence but because she's so passionate about music, performing and songwriting that she can't contain her enthusiasm.

The Chicago native balances a hyphenated kind of career: She's a singer, songwriter, actress, record producer and television show host.

Her latest CD, 2006's Blues in the Night, is jazz, big band, torch songs, pop standards, originals and musical theater comedy all rolled into one. In other words, it's typical Ann Hampton Callaway.

Photo Credit: Bill Westmoreland "I could have made this a clear blues album," she says by phone from her New York home. "But I never do anything that's simple. I'm multifaceted, and I do things that are multifaceted. I'm a very dynamic human being. I weave a lot of different influences and sensibilities together into something that is uniquely me."

Ms. Callaway, a classically trained vocalist, can belt as well as quietly convey emotions with a voice that is throaty yet supple, clear and crisp. She spent years reconciling her love of blues, soul and gospel music with her fair skin color. In fact, she put that experience into the humorous composition "The I'm-Too-White-to-Sing-the-Blues CONTINUED

Blues," a track from Blues in the Night.

"I wrote that song many years ago," she says. "It has been an issue for me for a long time since my childhood, especially growing up in a household where my father was marching with Martin Luther King. I remember playing Ray Charles records, loving the soulful music from the African-American songbook, feeling it, singing it and being embarrassed by it. I could wail. I have a gospel side of me. It made me feel very free to sing that way even though I was studying to be a classical singer."

With age and the recording of Blues in the Night, her "I let it rip" album, Ms. Callaway got past the ethnic dilemma.

"The older you get, the less important categories and rules are and the more important it is to be who you are," she says. "Everybody I know has ethnic envy. And there's no cure. I've tried. I've failed."

She laughs. That sense of humor is further evident on "Hip to Be Happy," another cut from Blues in the Night. Ms. Callaway calls that her Diva of America campaign theme.

"If you can't laugh at it all, what can you do? People love the idea of Diva of America. We may have to start a real campaign."

Seriously, though, Ms. Callaway has no complaints about her hard-to-peg career. Among the highlights are writing and singing the theme song for the television series The Nanny and starring in the hit Broadway musical Swing! Among her proudest accomplishments: Penning three songs – "At the Same Time," "I've Dreamed of You" and "A Christmas Lullaby" – recorded by iconic vocalist Barbra Streisand.

"She has a certain clout and star wattage that is dazzling beyond almost anyone," Ms. Callaway says of Ms. Streisand. "The powerful impact she's had on me and anyone I know as a singer, as an interpreter of great American songs ... she's a force of nature. When she does a song, she owns it."

Ms. Callaway has that same passion about great American songs. Which is why she's in the midst of raising $2 million to begin production of a public television series, CONTINUED

Singers Spotlight With Ann Hampton Callaway . Two pilots have been shot in Chicago and aired there, but the goal is to turn it into a national series.

"It's a mission that's very important to me because our songwriting legacy needs to be protected. In a nation ruled by American Idol, it's important to know where the great singing comes from. It really hurts my heart that there are so many kids that are growing up and don't have music in their schools and haven't heard the great songs and singers. I want to bring the variety show back to television."

She'll do it, too, even if it leaves her breathless.

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