It’s neither a remake of the film starring Bette Davis, nor a documentary on the tragic destiny of an American singer exiled in France, and yet this story could be called “What happened to Natalia M. King?”
It’s the story of a pioneering musician with a powerful impact and a captivating voice who, on Woman Mind Of My Own, her seventh album which comes out in February via DixieFrog Records, enters for the first time, the ancient—almost sacred—territory of blues, rhythm and blues, and American roots music. Through its nine tracks, all either composed by King or borrowed from others, there is a marvelous feeling of rediscovery of that magical style, unaffected by the wear and tear of time.
Carefully orchestrated by guitarist and producer, Fabien Squillante, Woman Mind Of My Own is no exercise in retro-mania. On the contrary, it’s very much a contemporary oeuvre, a holistic record that doesn’t stop celebrating Love with a capital L, ever seducing like a magic potion. It’s not just a self-portrait of an incredibly intense artist who has always presented herself exactly as she is, no-frills attached, but of a courageous, larger-than-life lady.
In the year 2000, and on the verge of being discovered wild-child busking in the Paris metro, trying to earn a few bucks with her voice and guitar, King was fiercely determined to find and create her own unique style—a thorny free-style rock, somewhere between the lyricism of Jeff Buckley and the formal radicalism of Ornette Coleman. Then, with 2014’s Soul Braz and 2016’s Bluezzin T’il Dawn, she followed the trail of Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. Today, it’s in the crossroads of Etta James and Robert Johnson where she’s finding her fulfillment in Woman Mind Of My Own. And so, yes, what did happen to Natalia M. King?
“At one point, playing what one might call ‘alternative’ music began to bore me,” she explains. “It was less and less exciting as more and more people began to jump on the bandwagon, and ‘alternative’ wasn’t really ‘alternative’. It had become pretty unhip. I had decided on becoming a musician that I was not going to be a part of any tradition or trend, to have no connections. And quite frankly, at that time, there was no way I would ever play jazz or blues. I had never performed in a club, had never hung out in a Southern Juke Joint. I had no background whatever for these styles. But after Soul Braz and Bluezzin T’il Dawn, the natural thing seemed to go further, to carry on digging to find the roots of the tree : the blues.”
Born and raised in Brooklyn by a strong Dominican mother, King finished her studies and set off across the US in true beatnik style, hitching rides and taking the Greyhounds, her sole baggage consisting of a notebook and overflowing courage. She got by doing different jobs; everything from delivering pizzas and working as a mechanic, to trying her hand as a trawler on an Alaskan fishing boat. Her vagabond life lead her to Paris, where, energized by the writings of James Baldwin, she arrived with her Ovation guitar, destined to become a blues singer.
“It didn’t instill the blues in me but it got me curious. A curiosity that led me to Skip James, John Lee Hooker, and Robert Johnson,” she recalls. After watching “The Soul Of Man” at a cinema in Nimes, King was overcome by hearing Skip James for the first time. “That gave me one hell of a kick up the backside,” she explains. “That film began my initiation.”
King, who had begun her musical career wanting to take everything apart, found herself rebuilding on foundations established by the legendary players. “First, there was a Revelation, then a time of adapting, followed by the belonging which was through feeling. I didn’t want to imitate,” explains King. “I wanted to live this music in body and soul. The truth is, you don’t get the blues; it’s the blues that either gets you or not”
King enlisted the talents of Fabien Squillante, an experienced producer with a deep knowledge of American music, who then assembled a lineup of musicians and began and begin forging the space where she could totally shine. The resulting work became Woman Mind Of My Own, nine tracks that encompass rocky soul searching, tracks that tell the tale of a hungry heart forever seeking to be filled.