 “Oh my god, oh my god, we had such a good time!”
That’s Rose Hudson, talking about her experience singing at a local jazz jam a few years back. Given her irrepressible enthusiasm for all things music, however, the blues and jazz chanteuse could be describing just about any of her endeavors.
Looking at the meandering path Hudson’s life has taken, from her formative years singing in Catholic school choirs while living in the projects to the birth of her eight children to her performances everywhere from New Orleans to Copenhagen, it’s apparent that her story has been anything but ordinary.
Hudson had no formal training early on, but describes a home that was full of music. “My mom and dad weren’t musicians, but I grew up listening to music every day. My mother is from Puerto Rico, so I’d hear a lot of Latin music, but they were also into soul music, James Brown and a lot of that Motown stuff.” Her first experiences with performing happened in the Catholic school she attended, where “it seemed like we were always singing for some church function or another,” she says. Hudson seems grateful for the steady diet of music, which allowed her to begin a craft she would drift in and out of for decades.
“We were kind of poor, so my mom couldn’t afford to send me to voice lessons or piano lessons, but I was able to participate a lot in school,” she says.
In the early ’80s, at age 16, Hudson had an opportunity to explore the less-than-Catholic side of music. She was invited to audition for, and subsequently joined, a band called Sunburst, which she describes as “an R&B group that – their music was similar to Earth, Wind & Fire. Their music had more of a message, almost similar to Bob Marley’s music, but without the reggae.”
Sunburst introduced Hudson to what she describes as “unscripted” music, and also introduced her to a man who would change her life dramatically. She says as casually as if she’s referring to a quick trip to the grocery store, “Well, I married one of the guys in the band. Yeah, eventually we got married and had eight kids.”
Needless to say, those eight kids diverted the trajectory of Hudson’s musical career. Years later, after a divorce, she enrolled in nursing school in order to support her brood. But it seems that Hudson has been an electromagnet for music at just about every stage of her life.
“Somewhere in the middle of school, I was out with friends one night and walked into Granfalloons, and there was Extremity playing,” she explains. “And I knew one of the guys in Extremity, and I asked if I could get up and sing. Fortunately, I still remembered the words, so I got up and sang it. I was petrified!”
After a pause, Hudson finishes the story with a dramatic exhale, saying, “But it felt so good.”
Status-quo wisdom would suggest that a full-time student who was also working to support eight children ought not to consider starting a new vocation. But Hudson was hooked. She continued to sit in with bands while hammering away at her nursing degree, and her readiness to be mentored, to learn, to approach things as a willing apprentice to others started to open doors. During that time, Hudson came upon another turning point in her unlikely story.
“I met CoCo Coleman; she’s one of the Divas of Jazz,” Hudson explains. “I was amazed because she was the first female jazz singer that I saw sing live, so I asked her, ‘How do I get into this?’ I don’t know any jazz or anything like that. She told me, ‘You need to come out to the jam sessions.’”
Just as she had always done, Hudson got her feet wet and then jumped in. The jazz jam sessions soon spawned a regular jam night that also incorporated rock, funk and blues. Hudson describes being out of her element, but says that it was irresistible nonetheless. “At that time, I still didn’t know enough jazz. People were coming out and saying, ‘Sing some blues,’ and I didn’t know any blues either! So I would go to jazz night so I could learn from jazz musicians. Then [I learned] rock, funk and blues,” she recalls.
“Being a black girl from the projects and going to Catholic school, it’s unheard of to sing rock music,” she says with a laugh. “In my neighborhood, if I would have told people I like singing Pat Benatar, I would have gotten beat up!”
Somewhere in that process, Hudson found her confidence. “I was very amateur … an amateur that turned into a professional by the time the jams were done,” she says. “How to be a band leader, I learned that at the jam sessions.”
During that same time, Hudson says she was tortured by the strain between her midwife classes and her newfound musical passion. In the end, though, “the music just kept pulling me and pulling me,” she says. “I was finally like, ‘You know, maybe I’ll be a midwife someday, but my passion is music right now and I’ve got to follow my heart.’ And I don’t regret it. It was the right decision.”
In the years since, Hudson has pieced together a rich tapestry of experiences. One such highlight was a trip to Copenhagen for a blues festival, which she describes as an unforgettably important moment for her career. As she describes it, there are echoes of her own experience of immersion in the jam sessions. “I think what struck me was that people in Europe appreciate jazz and blues. I think they inhale it like it’s a drug,” she says. “You’re on stage singing or performing and they don’t talk … they’re just soaking it all in.”
Recently, Hudson participated in a groundbreaking album and multimedia show that she hopes might be the seeds of her next professional steps. The Tear Jar is something of a blues opera, using blues, jazz, gospel and rock to tell a story through song. After releasing an album and performing the show at venues in Harrisburg and Philadelphia, Hudson and company hope the next stop might be Broadway. They are working with a New York director to re-engineer the show, which they’ll eventually showcase for producers in the city.
Now that Hudson’s youngest child is just a few years away from independence, she is working feverishly to establish such a foundation that she can quit nursing, downsize life and become a working musician. If The Tear Jar doesn’t pan out, she even has some contingencies in place. She explains, “In the meantime, I’ve been networking with musicians down in New Orleans. I got a chance to meet Charmaine Neville. I call her every now and then. I got a chance to sing with her band on stage.” She travels to the Big Easy frequently and will be performing in next year’s world-famous New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
“If New York doesn’t happen,” Hudson says, “New Orleans, here I come!”
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