Out from Under a Songbird's Wing
"[My dad] never tried to hide anything from anyone, he's a very honest person," says Mahalia Barnes on the eve of the release of Soul Mates Volume 1. For 10 years she has toured with often alcohol and/or drug addicted father Jimmy Barnes and band and stayed away from releasing anything on her own because she "...didn't feel like [she] was ready."
Barnes claims to having learned "life's lessons" from dad on her way to adapting and improving over the model. Taking a different tack, albeit with a different musical model is Seun Kuti, the Nigerian Afrobeatist who is leading veteran musicians from daddy Fela Kuti's Egypt 80 band. The younger proudly admits to being just like dad, "Crazy," although hopefully not in the way that had his father's compund attacked and overrun just over 30 years ago by soldiers of the Nigerian President Obasanjo, who is again in power.
Where is the reliance of the child on the musical father? Hard to say and rarely the same from one to the other. Eulaulah Donyll "Lalah" Hathaway, for example, took inspiration from her dead father. Soulman Donny, who died nearly three decades ago, came singing to her in a dream to inspire "On Your Own," a song on her "Self Portrait," scheduled for a June release. "I am his daughter and that's the truth of who I am, every day."
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