Jackie Shane has long been heeded as a forerunner of transgender rights and representation in soul music, even after ducking out of the public eye in the ‘70s for a large portion of her career. The 77-year old singermade her first-ever on-air debut today in an interview with Lisa Wall on Sveriges Radio’s “P1 Kultur” program, where the two spoke about Jackie’s past, present, and life philosophy.
After a nearly five-decades long stretch of silence, Shane is once again coming into view as elegantly as ever with the 2017 Numero Group reissue of Any Other Way, a culmination of all six of her 45s and every highlight from the legendary 1967 live sessions at the Sapphire Tavern, along with three previously-unreleased tracks.
Shane’s reemergence is finally drawing the wholly deserved yet long overdue credit from the public. But she has always been the same stouthearted powerhouse throughout her entire life, as she explained in the interview, “I cannot see myself as anyone or any other person because that would be phony. If I had to pretend, I’d make a mess of it, because it’s not me.” And her music offers listeners lessons in giving in to the liberation and magnetic freedom that Shane has found in her own life:
“I can put something there that I want to talk about. One can teach while entertaining.”
“What did you want to teach?”
“I wanted to teach ‘live and let live.’”
Here the interview in its entirety here.
