Yogi Berra humorously suggested, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” I met Chris Connor at just such a crossroads and she helped me choose my direction. Our connection wasn’t a face-time, personal mentorship-the kind I later developed with heroes Etta Jones, Mark Murphy and Sheila Jordan-but it was distinctly real and important.
It was 1976 and I had moved back home to the Bay Area after playing rhythm guitar and singing with an alternative/Western swing group around the Boston area at night while attending Harvard by day. I was leading a double life and it was causing me considerable psychic confusion. On the surface I was simply taking a year off, but it was much bigger than that. Music was undeniably becoming my life path, but the genres I had explored were not my future. I craved a more sophisticated direction.
