 Courtesy of the Artist An award-winning musician, actor, and screenwriter, Jennifer Porter is a musician’s musician. Having sung with Classical and Jazz Orchestras, including the world famous Glenn Miller Orchestra, and smaller combos including her own quintet, Jennifer is also an accomplished Blues pianist who has played with C.J. Chenier, Nathan and The Zydeco Cha-Chas, and Ils Sont Partis. To date, she has recorded 7 albums and will be releasing her newest, These Years, recorded with legendary producer Jay Newland, December 7th. Ahead of the release, Jennifer answered her Essential 8 and spoke about songwriting, collaborating, working in the garden, and more! Why did you choose to anchor the album with the songs you did? I saw this album as being centered around love and relationships in all of their complexity, rawness, and beauty, including one’s relationship to oneself -- the most complex, raw, and potentially beautiful of all! When/where do you do your best writing? When I am completely alone. If I think anyone can hear me, even someone I trust and love, I feel inhibited. I also tend to be more inspired at night, or in the early morning hours. Stereotypical, I know! I also, at least so far, can’t set aside a designated time to write songs. I can when I am composing a film score, or when I write screenplays, but songs build up in me for a while. It is literally a physical sensation - a feeling of pressure from inside to out in my solar plexus, chest, and head. Eventually, when I am alone, the song practically erupts onto the keyboard, and from there onto manuscript paper, and I often feel like I didn’t write the words, the song did. That doesn’t mean that I don’t struggle over lyrics, or deliberately work them out from time to time, but often the syllables just seem to form out of the music. What’s the best advice to give to a musician just starting out? Listening to others is important, but listening to your gut is of far greater importance. Just make sure it is your gut, and not a bruised ego! This requires a painfully honest assessment, sometimes! : ) What has been your biggest struggle so far?
To figure out exactly what to be doing as a musician. What I really wanted to do in my heart. I had performed so many styles. I started out playing Boogie-woogie and Blues by ear when I was a child, then began training as an Opera singer and classical pianist. I switched to Jazz when I saw Ella Fitzgerald, sang Country when called upon, including performing on multiple occasions as Patsy Cline, and all along played and sang Roots music whenever the opportunity arose. Each style that I sang had its own fans, and they could be quite strong in their feelings when I sang something other than what they thought I should be singing, and of course, as an artist, who doesn’t want their audience happy and approving?! : ) It felt right to me when I went back to the Roots music I was drawn to as a child, long before the classical music teachers got their hands on me, though I am grateful to them! : ) Who would you love to collaborate with? A four-way tie between Bonnie Raitt, The Neville Brothers, Harry Connick, Jr., and Dr. John. Favorite (or first) concert you have ever attended? It’s a tie between Rufus Wainwright and a recent solo concert by Kris Kristofferson! Marcia Ball was great, too! Favorite thing to do on a day off? I love working in my gardens! I think I might have too many now. It’s getting harder and harder to keep up with them, or maybe I’m just getting older! : ) Have you met any of your heroes? If so, how did it go? Yes, Zydeco great, C.J. Chenier. I was so nervous! I’d listened to several of his CDs while traveling across the country - I can’t think about the vistas of the southwest, or the rolling grassy hills of Oklahoma, without hearing C.J.’s music. When he was playing at the Saco River Theatre, where I work regularly as an actor, he invited me to sit in with him for a couple of songs. When the songs were finished I got up to leave, and he motioned for me to stay. I was sure I’d misread his hand gesture, and started once again to leave the stage. He then said “Sit down.” I had a ball! I’ve played with C.J. and the fantastic Red Hot Louisiana Band several times since then, and I love those guys! I was so honored when C.J. agreed to join me on THESE YEARS! Website
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