Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip: Patrice Rushen

Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip: 

Patrice Rushen

In my big gay church, there are many, many wings. One is dedicated to those referred to as Forever Our Girls. They are the girls next door. The ones who seemed accessible, real and a part of every day life while stealing our hearts with their girlish charms. And they did it all wrapped up in the trappings of whatever was topping the charts at the time. Sounds changed. Styles came and went, but the one thing that remained constant? Their voice.

One such groove-meister?

Patrice Rushen.

Forget Me Nots? How could we ever?

Accomplished. Talented. A musical goddess. 

The lady has laid down so many seminal sounds, she's been feeding generations of artists, inspiring and enlightening.

The entire time? She got us hitting the dance floor with grooves so deep, one's soul could be lost forever. 

We are thankful. We bow down. We surrender. So powerful is her channel. How could we help but stay tuned?

And she's still at it... playing live and igniting the spark in young minds the world over.

The gospel according to her?

Well, here are three from the hip, dropping from her lips.

The topic? Prince.

"I think that our friendship was really based in the music. A recording engineer of my project said, 'I need you to meet someone that has the same kind of interest as you in terms of playing a lot of instruments, writing material, introspective about the industry, and is a fan of yours, and wants to meet you.'

We met over the phone and the whole idea of what he was about musically was intriguing. He was very curious about the music and that's what started our friendship. Now, because we were contemporaries, and because this industry has always been kind of set up with the what-ifs, 'What if so-and-so was with so-and-so?', I think that may have been a little bit more perpetuated than I was aware.

I find out probably the same time you find out! You open up the CD or whatever, and you're reading the “Best Of” [liner notes] and find out a particular song was written about you or for you, or with you in mind or something like this. That came as news to me!"

"Our relationship was always kind of distanced because we didn't run into each other that often. But when we did, we used to have some pretty deep conversation. And the one I remember and respected the most was before Purple Rain came up. He was terrified.

He was really concerned about this movie: 'I may have bitten off more than I can chew on this one.' I said, 'Well, did you do your best?' He said, 'Yeah.' I said, 'Well then that's all that's all you can do.' And he said, 'Well, from your lips to God's ears.' I said, 'If this is about your path and in your truth, you're going to be okay.' Boy, the thing came out and the rest is history!"

"There was one other time when I had a conversation with him actually at the Grammys. My first Grammy Awards as [music] director was the show that he and Beyoncé opened. Because of the scope of - just the spectacle of this show, the bigness of it and everything... he wanted to rehearse and get things right, and so [did] she. Very hard worker. Wants it right. Doesn't mind doing things over and over until it's just so. I admired that about both of them.

Some of the music was prerecorded so that it would be consistent. This is very, very common. Especially when it’s going out live like that, in a basketball arena! It's not a concert arena. So, you want to control the sound, blah, blah, blah. This particular day, the producer just thought, 'I know we've rehearsed it like this, but I want to do it [live] over the air.' That’s kinda dangerous on the day of the show! He said, 'I want you to go and convince Prince that that's what he should do.'

I’m knowin' this is not a great idea!

And on the way to the stage to talk to him, I’m going, 'Okay, so how - how do I deliver this message, knowing that I'm getting ready to talk to my friend about doing something that wasn't a great idea?' So, I went to him, delivered the message, and he says, 'What do you think I should do?'

I said, 'I think you should follow what you feel is right. Just remember no one else is set up for this right now. Nobody. It can be done, but you could be rolling the dice in a situation [where] others are not prepared.' He got it.

That's the relationship that we had. 'What do you think I should do' doesn’t come out of the mouth of a major star who has done a thousand shows, loves playing live, but knows that this is one of the biggest nights on television and the world stage. He got one shot and he gon' ask what do I think? With all of the other bravado, at his core, he was an artist. He wanted opportunities to express himself in the clearest ways that he could.

I know that he listened to a lot of the music that I did because I could hear little quotes and stuff here and there, now and again. That's wonderful to feel like you touched somebody in that way. And whenever I would see him, he was always polite and cordial and inquisitive."

Haw-Right - Patrice Rushen Trio

Forget Me Nots - Patrice Rushen

Haven't You Heard? - Alan Fitz Patrick vs. Patrice Rushen

And one last parting shot...

"As a college professor who teaches popular music, one of the things that becomes really obvious is that those in higher education are there because they are wanting to go deeper. They want to do a deep dive into massive amounts of musical material. They want to be able to use that as a launchpad for whatever they're going to do. They want to understand where it all comes from.

I think that the artists [of today] that you’ve mentioned maybe haven't done the deep dive, but they've gone back far enough to realize the validity and the value of those sounds and grooves. It sticks in a different way, when people can see that you're not out here winging it. That you've taken the time to be able to get with your team and think about how it's going to be presented. I think that's why some of those artists stand out.

I'm okay with the idea that artists like myself didn't get our just due. A lot of us were rewarded in ways that allowed for us to continue to do it. That's why we did it. You could tell who was doing it because they loved it. It was a part of who they were, it resonated with their truth. Their truth was so powerful that it resonated with another person's truth.

We were hybrids that came from a generation that gave us permission to go for whatever we wanted musically, as long as it was presented at a high level. Creating an environment that told us it's okay to do our thing because we were already standing on the shoulders of those who have done it. So, when you talk about the artists you mentioned, those are people who are standing on ours. And that's the way it's supposed to go."