Divine Brown, Chronicled

Those of you who have been reading CONFRONT Magazine for a while, know by now that I’m pretty much a rock/alternative girl; and those few times when I’m not in the mood for Rock I tend to go for the overly sweet, sugary pop sounds of artists such as Britney Spears or the Backstreet boys.  I’m a tad weird, I know.  In fact, it was on one of my sugar rush days that I had the opportunity to sit with R&B/Soul songstress, Divine Brown, as she prepared to hit the stage in Sherbrooke, QC, for the third night of a two week Canadian tour, opening for the Backstreet Boys.

Despite the excitement of heading out on a day trip – Sherbrooke being roughly 1.5 hrs away from our Montreal headquarters – and seeing yet another BSB concert with all my friends and CONFRONT staffers, I was a little nervous to meet with Divine, a Canadian artist whose name is on everyone’s lips at the moment.

I’m not very well versed in the R&B or Soul of today to be honest.  It’s not really my thing.  Beyonce is pretty much the extent of my immediate knowledge base and she’s not exactly on my list of top ten favourite artists.  That’s not to say that I dislike the genre – I grew up listening to a lot of the classics through  my parents’ music collection; Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Etta James and Mary Wells.  R&B sub-genres like Doo Wop send me hurtling through a time warp and I find myself day-dreaming of poodle skirts, sweater sets and horn-rimmed glasses …  despite only being born in 1977.  Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers’ “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” is a particular favourite of mine.

It’s always intimidating to interview someone whose chosen genre is foreign to you.  I don’t like going into a situation unprepared and no amount of research on an artist’s career path can compensate for an understanding and appreciation of their music.  All my fears faded away however, the minute I slipped Divine’s latest album, ‘The Love Chronicles’, into the CD player and heard the first notes of the album’s first track, “Lay It On the Line”.  The reminiscent feelings of sitting in my parents’ living room as a child, flipping through their old photo albums while listening to the music of their childhood, crept up and I felt right at ease.  As the tracks played on I was taken on a journey I had little expected, spanning from my parents era to my own; songs like “Sunglasses” – one of my favourites on the entire album – even sampling the audio track of Corey Hart’s mid-1980s ubber success, “Sunglasses at Night”, one of the first albums I bought myself when I was about 8 years old.

Settled comfortably in the back room of the tour bus that Divine shares with her dancers and backup singers, the awkwardness of starting a conversation with a perfect stranger by berating them with a series of questions was lessened by the singer’s contagious, exuberant smile.

“If I take it way back, like when I was a kid, I was always fascinated with Soul Train and Solid Gold or anything like that because people were on stage performing.” Divine told me, when I asked if she could give me a little history about her personal musical journey, to get the conversation started.  “And all I knew was: ‘I’m gonna be there one day’.  But it was such an innate thing, meaning that it’s like I was born with it; born with the desire to perform.  So it was never a question.  Whenever I had the opportunity throughout elementary school to be involved in a production, I would take it on.  The first play that I ever did was a spin of Jack and Magic Beanstalk.  But it was called Jack and the Magic Garbage Can.  Very creative.  I don’t know if it was the teacher who revamped that story but I was the princess; and I was so excited to be the princess, to get the lead.  I got my first taste of being involved in entertainment.

“I would sing in school choirs and that type of deal.  Any school production, I was involved in.  And by the time I got to high school, I pretty much knew that this is what I wanted to do.  The desire was so strong.  I couldn’t run from it.  I just continued developing my voice and went to different vocal coaches.”

Few people in pop music culture today will admit such a thing.  Not that there is anything wrong with training with vocal coaches – in fact more people should consider the practice – but it tends to be viewed as a tool for classical singers rather than pop artists.

“I’ve seen two really good vocal coaches that have taught me a lot in my life time.” Divine continued.  “The first was an Opera coach and I only did about 6 to 8 lessons with her but it was such valuable information even in that short period of time that I think I still use it to this day in terms of breathing… the basics of classical singing.

“There is specific technique that I learned that helps me to hold notes.  But it’s not something that I mastered but I know that when I breathe right and I’m supporting right, I think of the woman that taught me that.

“Then there is another teacher who taught me another method by a really famous vocal coach named Seth Riggs.  He was really famous in the 80s.  His technique was very popular and I was working with Bill Vincent, who taught Seth Riggs’ method, for a couple of years as well.

“I really wanted to maintain my raw ability [though], my raw voice.  Because I didn’t want to lose a sense of how I naturally feel the music as opposed to being trained and how to read efficiently and that stuff.

“I adopted the mentality that my voice is my instrument and I use it that way.  I sang jazz, I sang gospel as well as R&B and soul music to develop my voice and develop my sound.  If I needed to get jazzy and scat then I could do that and sort of get that gospel Detroit or Atlanta feel to it; I could if I wanted to.  It’s like having a bag of tricks and pulling it out when you need to, so that I could keep up my versatility.”