Legendary Grammy-award winning singer Thelma Houston is best known for the disco classic "Don't Leave Me This Way" which was originally released in 1976. More than 30 years later, Thelma still tours the world performing for enthusiastic audiences who embrace disco music. On A Woman's Touch, her first studio album in 17 years, Thelma reexamines songs originally sung by male artists and makes them her own.
DJ Ron Slomowicz: It's a real honor to be speaking to you today.
Thelma Houston: Well thank you, it's an honor to speak to you as
well. As long as you're going to say something good about my CD, that
will be an honor as well. <laughing>
RS: Well I can't imagine not saying something good about your
CD. Let's start with how you got the idea to this CD of wonderful
covers.
Thelma Houston: Initially, I was going to do a CD that was going to
be sold at my concerts and club dates. When I do my live shows, I
don't just do all material that I've recorded, I try to mix it up and
do different kinds of music. I find that if I'm singing something
that I'm enjoying and having a good time singing, then the audience
feels that and has a great also. After the concerts, people want
autographs and pictures and invariably there will be some people who
will ask me how they can buy the other songs I perform. I've been
doing this Sylvester medley as my opener for five years or longer and
that's where the initial idea sprang from.
RS: On this CD, you're doing all songs by male artists. Was that
a decisive direction for the project?
Thelma Houston: When I met with Peter Angell, the producer of the CD,
we talked about my idea to do songs that I loved and songs that I
wished I had recorded. Peter suggested that we pick some songs and
see how they work with you and try to come up with arrangements and
ideas about how you might want to do them. For instance, "Ain't That
Peculiar" was a very up-tempo song by Marvin Gaye and we slowed it
down and made it a bluesy ballad.
It just turned out that the songs that worked the best for me when
trying to make them my own, were the songs originally recorded by men.
The female singers that I really, really love like Aretha Franklin,
Chaka Khan, or Barbra Streisand - when those ladies do a song,
they've pretty much done it already. They've done everything that can
be done to that song and so you might as well leave that alone and go
on to the next thing and that's what I did.
RS: Thinking about the songs on the CD, which one was the
hardest for you to take on?
Thelma Houston: The most difficult song was the Luther Vandross song
"Never Too Much," because it has a lot of lyrics. I had to be very
conscious of my breathing so not to run out of breath will all the
words in it.
RS: I am surprised that breathing would be a challenge since you
are such an amazing live performer. You've been touring constantly
for twenty years now, or thirty years?
Thelma Houston: I've been performing since the 60s and I made my
first album in 1969, so it's been a bit over twenty years.
RS: I always like to ask legendary performers, do you ever get
tired of singing your trademark song? Singing "Don't Leave Me This
Way," do you ever get tired of singing those lyrics or is there
something fresh every time you sing it?
Thelma Houston: You can make it fresh because it's always for a new
audience. I don't get tired of it, because I feel very fortunate that
at this point in time in my life and in my career that I had a song
that was big enough that people expect to hear that. For instance, I
did a big show recently with Chicago, the Doobie Brothers, War, and
the Four Tops and I was the only lady on the show. I did "Don't Leave
Me This Way," and there were thirteen thousand people singing "aaaaah
baby." It was amazing and I never get tired of hearing it.
