Swinging sounds of Geyer
SINGER Renée Geyer, well-known for her rhythm and blues music over a 40-year singing career, has turned to the big-band sound for her latest album Swing.
“When Michael Bublé became popular performing big-band music, it dawned on me that Australians would love it, so I worked out a way to
make my own version,” Geyer says on the eve of a concert tour to coincide with the release of the album.
“There are a lot of old songs that have been sung many times before, but this time I’ve performed them in a different style.
“Fly Me to the Moon is not how Frank Sinatra does it – I’ve gone back to a slow ballad style.
“For the up-tempo numbers, the arrangers and I went nuts with the horn section.”
Swing is Geyer’s 25th album and she is thrilled to have a six-piece band and 12-piece horn section backing her in the concerts which start at Melbourne’s Hamer Hall on May 30.
It has been a tough time for the experienced performer, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009 and has made a successful recovery.
“It took about a year to be treated and had some nasty side effects, but I sang all the way through my treatment,” she says. “Singing stopped me from moping around. I didn’t miss one gig.”
And her distinctive, soulful voice has lost none of its power through her illness – which she attributes to her Jewish genes.
Geyer was born in 1953, the daughter of Eastern European Jews who survived the Holocaust and settled in Melbourne. After a couple of years the family moved to Sydney, where Edward Geyer – Renee’s father – became manager of the Jewish Migrant Hostel, which was home to 15 Jewish refugee families.
“This was where Jews from all over the world who arrived here without anything would find shelter until they could find a job and their own place to live,” says Geyer.
They were very involved in the community for many years. Her father sang in the choir at The Great Synagogue for many years until his death earlier this year from a stroke, aged 93. Her mother is 87 and a resident at the Montefiore Homes.
“My father has been singing in Jewish choirs since he was seven years old in his home city of Budapest,” she says.
“At his funeral, The Great Synagogue choir sang for him. I have dedicated my new album to him.
“My father’s brothers were cantors and my mother’s side also has cantors, so there is a lot of music in my family, but I think my arranging skills and my musical ability comes from my father.
“If he had been swayed in that direction he probably would have become a famous musician.”
Geyer’s determination to become a singer grew stronger while a high school student.
“There was real turmoil at home because I wanted to sing, and I started performing at clubs and wine bars. But they did not understand that on a school night I would come home late at night,” she recalls.
“My father said if I was going to do that, I was not going to live at home. So to make peace I moved out. I left home – and school – and for a Jewish girl to do that at 17 or 18 was a major event.
“I got a job singing in a bar straight away, and my mum made sure I did not go hungry.”
In 1970 Geyer joined her first band, Dry Red, and her career blossomed. Three years later she released her first album, which was self-titled, and she shot to fame with her sultry rendition of James Brown’s It’s a Man’s World.
A succession of pop, soul and reggae hits followed. During the 1980s and 1990s Geyer spent a lot of time in America performing with artists including Sting, Chaka Khan, Joe Cocker, Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Brown.
She was inducted in the Australian Record Industry Association’s Hall of Fame in 2005.
“My parents were very proud of my achievements. My father was not interested in contemporary music – he loved classical music, especially the work of Gustav Mahler,” she says.
The Swing album provided Geyer with an opportunity to sing a variety of classic songs, including My Funny Valentine, Say I Love You and I Got Rhythm. She also persuaded long-time friend Paul Kelly to sing with her on Comin’ Home Baby.
She says the inspiration behind Swing was a 1966 album recorded by Frank Sinatra with Count Basie and his orchestra at the Sands in Las Vegas, which she enjoyed listening to as a teenager.
Geyer has performed at the Shir Madness music festival in Sydney and at Chanukah celebrations in Melbourne in recent years.
Renée Geyer’s Swing concert is at Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne on May 30. Bookings: www.artscentremelbourne.com.au.
Renée Geyer’s Swing concert is at the Sydney Opera House on July 14. Bookings: www.sydneyoperahouse.com.
REPORT by Danny Gocs
PHOTO of Renee Geyer
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