This was definitely another turning point in my life and one that I recall with extreme fondness.
There’s a lot of it to remember.
Well quite. I believe the final product occupied five whole records if memory serves. It was most certainly the largest project I witnessed being created. A full orchestra played every day for months and Ms Fitzgerald sang dozens of songs and I must admit I was in heaven.
The album is certainly incredible.
It’s wonderful. Her voice really is a thing of beauty, and so was the woman herself I must say. Not a classic figure of pulchritude by most reckoning, and possibly not the first person most think of when naming attractive singers, but when she sang there was nothing finer on God’s great earth. And it inspired a monumental decision on my own part: I told my mother what I did for a living.
And how did she take it?
Not at all well it’s fair to suggest. It took a long time for her to appreciate that I wasn’t trying to be deliberately humourous and it wasn’t some sort of devilish lark that I was putting on for my own childish amusement. I remember saying “Yes mother, every day this week I’ve been washing up coffee cups used by a black lady who sings popular music,” and I most vividly recall her bursting into copious tears when she finally realised I wasn’t joking. “If your father knew you were a common house lackey for a negress he would be turning in his grave” she wailed. I wanted to point out that since Father was scraped off the pavement and wasn’t so much laid to rest as plopped into a casket in bin-liners he wasn’t capable of rotating in any capacity but I didn’t think the time was right to remind her of Father’s untimely demise. She rang off still sobbing and I went into work the next day and listened to Ms Fitzgerald singing “Nice Work if you Can get it” which I took as confirmation of a great many things. It really was nice work I was involved in and I considered myself extremely fortunate to have obtained it. While it’s true I occasionally encountered a stubborn floor scuffing whose removal I joked would drive me to hurl myself from an upper story window, it was never a serious consideration. I might not have been in possession of my father’s bank balance but I was free of his troubles and his woes and my riches were more tangible than sterling.
That’s beautifully put.
I thank you.
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