Samara Joy on making her BBC Proms debut: "I didn't really realise the size of it"
The Grammy-winning jazz singer brings her soaring vocals to the Royal Albert Hall this weekend.
The song Peace of Mind speaks to an experience that’s probably familiar to anyone who’s ever been on the cusp of fame – that moment when your life speeds up and starts to feel like it’s not quite your own any more. “Where do you find/Your peace of mind/Is it in the places you go/Or the people you meet,” the song begins.
For Samara Joy, whose song it is, there’s a need for peace of mind because the prodigiously talented 25-year-old jazz singer from The Bronx in New York has risen to the top at astonishing speed, carving out a glittering career that we can expect to take another leap forward when she makes her BBC Proms debut on Saturday, presenting a show called The Great American Songbook and Beyond, which, as with all the Proms, will air live on Radio 3.
“The lyrics came from personal experience,” Samara says, speaking to Radio Times having just flown into London a few days ahead of her Royal Albert Hall performance. “That feeling of being a bit overwhelmed by success – a feeling of entering adulthood and it all being a bit too accelerated.”
The three studio albums, the critical acclaim, the five Grammy awards, the worldwide bookings at the most prestigious venues – truly life has come at Samara fast.
And yet to see her perform – and to hear her talk – is to be in the presence of naturalness, poise and tremendous self-possession, qualities bestowed on her by an upbringing she describes as “rich in love and family and community”, in which music and singing were all around her.
Samara – born Samara Joy McLendon – is the granddaughter of the founders of a Philadelphia gospel choir. Her father was a professional singer. “I’d sing with my father all the time – in the car driving to school, at Thanksgiving, around the house. Pretty much all I ever wanted to do was music. There was no other career!”
Motown, soul and RnB was what she sang along to. “I didn’t discover jazz until I went to college at the age of 17. I didn’t have any formal lessons until then. I just did it all by ear. I want to say that it was constant practice, but I didn’t even realise it was practice.”
Could she have gone down the pop route? “I guess I could have, but there are a lot of people in that lane. I feel it’s a bit over-saturated. Also pop requires you to give up so much of yourself in order to fit into some sort of aesthetic that people can hold on to.
“What I do is a clear road, and I can be myself. There’s too much traffic in those other lanes! I feel very fortunate to have a lot of leverage. I feel other artists my age might have to make sacrifices in order to do what they really want.”
Comparisons with greats such as Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan are being made all the time, but Samara says: “I hope that when people hear me, take the time to listen, they’ll realise that this is not an imitation act, it’s not a jukebox. I wasn’t born in that time or climate, so I’m not going to sound exactly like them.”
There’s no doubting that Samara brings her own stamp to bear on some beloved material, with a voice that is a technical marvel, has astonishing beauty, and conveys so much feeling, as a sell-out Albert Hall audience is about to discover.
The Great American Songbook means, she says, classics like Stardust and Misty, with the “Beyond” taking in Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, Sun Ra, Betty Carter, Billie Holiday and more.
With the BBC Concert Orchestra and the Samara Joy Octet behind her, it promises to be an amazing night, but how much did the Proms mean to Samara when the call came last autumn? “I’d seen so many clips of performances, but I didn’t really realise the importance of it, the size of it, until recently.”
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London is not new to her – she’s performed at the Barbican and at Ronnie Scott’s jazz club – but the Proms is a different level and it means things like heading off for dress fittings, trying on 20 or 30 in order to narrow the choices down to the two she’ll wear on the night, all of which Samara sounds a bit ambivalent about.
“I’m not the most fashionable person, but when there’s the opportunity to dress up, I try and show up! Really I like just being comfortable, and that’s another reason why I wouldn’t call myself a celebrity. I usually entrust the fashion duties to someone else.
“I’m not this huge personality off-stage. When I get home I try and get back to normality and routine as soon as possible – grocery shopping, signing up for a fitness class! I’m sociable up to a point, and then I retreat.”
The point at which, maybe to put it another way, peace of mind comes calling.
Read more:
- How composer Sam Watts took The Traitors to the Proms – and got his break on The Sarah Jane Adventures
- Boy George hits out at streaming after Top 40 charts success of vinyl-only album
BBC Proms: The Great American Songbook and Beyond with Samara Joy airs at 7pm on Saturday 19 July on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds.
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