People throw the word "diva" around so much these days it's hard to remember what one actually is. Let's refresh our memories: First off, a diva can sing. I mean, just belt it out. Second, girl gotta have some attitude. She can be basically nice, but she has to know how to throw her weight around. Finally, she's gotta have that diva
thing
, that evokes divas of old, women who just made it
happen
, women referred to often only by their first names: Ella, Bessie, Della. Apparently, a diva also must invoke the use of italics among music writers.
Pat Hodges, who stars in Swig's Pride Week lineup (135 W. Palace Ave., 955-0400), is a diva, ya'll. She's had several dancefloor hits, powered by her soul-drenched voice, a voice meant to hit the back rows of church pews. I caught up with her over the phone this weekend and realized, she really makes me want to use italics.
SFR: So what can people expect for your Pride Week show here in Santa Fe?
PH:
Well, I have three top ten songs "Savin' my Love," "You Make me Feel Good" and the third one is "Love Revolution." I know I'm gonna be doing those.
You've done solo stuff for quite a while but your background is backup singing. How did you make the transition to being a leading lady?
I was a member of a group for many years called Hodges, James and Smith and that's where I got all the leading skills. And then I did all my solo stuff and have been doing my own dance stuff with Casablanca Records since I left the group. We were together for maybe 10 years and traveled all over Europe and then when I broke out from them I've been solo ever since.
And when I met up with Peitor [Angell, writer and producer] the world opened up, because his sound is so connectional to me and it was the perfect marriage and we've been able to do so much great music together. So he was a catalyst for a lot of the great work that I've done in the past years.
How do you guys work together? What's the process?
He writes the songs and I sing 'em! It's just as simple as that. He writes great lyrics and great melodies and I make them
live
. So that's the combination that we do-his words come alive in my spirit and together we can make the songs live. He writes some great songs and his melodies are just incredible. So he puts 'em down on track and we go in there and we cut 'em and we make beautiful music. In a different world we'd be married.
I read something about how you had a very religious mom and then you had this aunt who was a whole other influence…
Now see, that was part of a one woman show and part of the story came from my own life story. But the aunt was a character we made up-I have to tell the truth! Now my mother was a very religious person, and because of her moral religious upbringing I didn't stray too far off the course of trying to be a good girl, trying to be a solid person, but she definitely got on my case about different things I was doing as a child. But I also had a daddy…I had a father who was something else. But he really put the music into me. He was into Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn and Della Reese and all those kind of singers and he would play this stuff for me all the time so it really heightened my taste for really good music and great vocalists. He must have known even then that that's what I was gonna do, that's where my life was gonna exist. But the part about the aunt that was a made-up character, just to make it more funny. My "Aunt Rachel," she did every thing that I wanted to do.
So what did that character represent for you?
The other side. Of not being such a good little girl for my mother, not being such a spirit-filled, Holy Ghost-filled girl. [As Aunt Rachel] I could be raw and raunchy and loud and just be the other person. Cuz you know growing up you've got three or four different personalities that you can identify with so that was my other side where I could be like Bessie Smith, who was very raw and raunchy and low-she could cuss you out and make love to you in the same breath. And her vocals had all those things. And then there's Sarah Vaughn and Ella Fitzgerald, they were the mellow, melodic voices. These were all people who I connected to who vocally made me who I am. It was very cool.
Did you sing in church too growing up?
Oh yeah, that's where I got my start, in the gospel choir. I don't know if that's just a black thing or what but we get our roots from the church, it's what helps us develop who we are. And if we can catch a hold of it, not only for the musical and cultural part of it, you can really become a good person, you've got that foundation, you know who you are at an early stage, you don't tend to drift and make those errors that so many of us tend to, like drugs and all that other stuff. It did help make me a better person, that's where it came from, straight out of the church, where my mother put me on a box so I could reach the microphone.
Why do you think the gay community relates so well to music like what you do?
It's so freeing. It's so non-judgemental. When I listen to it my spirit is free. It takes me to a place where I can be whoever or whatever I want to be.
