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[0:00] Robert Bannon: Are you ready? It's The Roundtable with me, Robert Bannon. Welcome to The Roundtable, everybody. My name is Robert Bannon. You're listening to us on Broadway World over here on the Broadway Podcast Network, iHeart, and Spotify. Okay, listen, our next guest has written, Me and my husband were just singing Luther Vandross. He said, Who are you interviewing today? I said Brenda Russell. He said, Piano in the dark, Brenda Russell. I said, Yes. And we all know that Brenda Russell, everybody, not only wrote Get Here, which I love Olita, but Brenda and I love her. She's been here. We love Brenda's version. I love if only for one night. I love. I was gonna sing the entire score to The Color Purple right in this show. Rising like the sun, that is my song. Oh, it makes me boo-hoo cry. The one and only the legendary iconic Grammy Award-winning Brenda Russell is here. Welcome to the show.

[0:56] Brenda Russell: Thank you, Robert. It's so sweet.

[0:58] Robert Bannon: And you sing good.

[1:00] Brenda Russell: Okay.

[1:01] Robert Bannon: Well, you write good music to sing to, so thank you so much. Congratulations on this brand new gorgeous song that is out, You Know What It's Like.

[1:10] Brenda Russell: Yeah.

[1:12] Robert Bannon: You like that song?

[1:13] Brenda Russell: I love the groove. I love your vocal. And what I being in love, I love the lyrics. It just feels like a hug.

[1:21] Brenda Russell: Yeah, right.

[1:22] Robert Bannon: You're not the first person to say that. Also, I wrote that song with Roberta Flack, which is very cool. Because she was very ill, and I just wanted to bring her inspiration and to other people, you know.

[1:36] Robert Bannon: And you know, when I read that and I heard that and I looked on the info on the streaming on Spotify, and it says you, it says Roberta Flack. How was it like? How did that work? Do you do you I know you a lot of the songs they when you look you up, it says lyrics and music by Brenda Russell. So how did this song in particular come about?

[1:57] Brenda Russell: Well, when the Queen calls you and she did and asked me if I would like to write a lyric for one of her songs and I said of course you're the queen so she sent me these music which is very funky. Loved it and I wrote these lyrics and it was so much fun. And she recorded it years ago and now I'm I re-recorded it. It is so beautiful it is streaming wherever music is streaming right now and I want people to go you can go to BrendaRussell.com for all the information. It's streaming on all the platforms as we speak.

[2:37] Robert Bannon: Excellent you know what it's like I'm trying to we we are gonna just get the word out because people need to hear this love and to hear this joy and posit the world is crazy right now. This song made me feel good. The world is so crazy that and it is I shouldn't say it inspires me but it compels me to write things about it. Like one of the songs on this album is called When What Will It Take asking what will it take for us to get serious about living on the planet you know I was gonna ask you does does does your life inspire the music that you write?

[3:14] Brenda Russell: Um I would say yes that my my what I take in inspires the music you know and everything inspires the music. I'm open to everything because you have to have an open door up here to receive the music or the idea for the music or the title. Like I keep a book of song titles that come to me.

[3:37] Robert Bannon: Oh wow.

[3:38] Brenda Russell: And if they're good, I write it down and I because I know there's a song within a great title. That's how I think. And now you think about things can really manifest the thing, you know.

[3:51] Robert Bannon: Absolutely. Well I was reading about you, I was reading your bio and you're growing up, you seem to have a very interesting fun New York City music parents to Canada to when you started working professionally and singing, I mean you were working with Elton John, you were doing it big from the go. What was it like back then to jump into this business?

[4:15] Brenda Russell: Elton signed me to me and my husband at the time Brian Russell he signed us to his record label. We did get signed by Elton John who's at the top in this game right at that time. It was insane. It was like wow it was wonderful. And he even played on our album which was really sweet.

[4:37] Robert Bannon: Incredible it is incredible. And you were writing songs and working as a songwriter like before your solo career took off you had written absolutely absolutely I wrote songs for Brian and I and we wrote broke songs together. But um I also always wrote songs on my own that were unique, very unique and I knew I had something and I was offered a record deal with Al Brian for on Columbia and I turned it down because I said if I can't do it with Brian I can't do that. And that's who I was at that time. Although friends would tell me this Colombian records.

[5:21] Brenda Russell: Yeah, no. But uh that's what happened.

[5:25] Robert Bannon: Well, then this the single starts coming songs for Earth, Wind and Fire, Songs for Jonna Summer, songs for um I mean the list the list goes on and on about the songs and the Mary Charles recorded one one of my songs. That that was a big moment for me. And Tina Turner. And Tina Turner and you know, and Diana Ross, and I like like they go on and on and the the list of people. What's it like when you give a song to somebody and they record it and they have a big giant hit record with it? Do you is there a part of you that's like that's my baby, or do you want wish you kept it for yourself? How does it feel?

[6:02] Brenda Russell: It it some songs I did keep for myself, but it's the most exciting feeling when Luther Vandross records one of your songs, who's like the badass singer on the planet, and he killed it. And I it was my Christmas present that year. I had just come back from Sweden where I wrote Get Here, by the way. I just came back and it's like, what am I gonna do? I have no money, and they said, Oh Luther just recorded your song. I'm like, I love him. I loved him. One of the the greatest, I mean technical singers of the world.

[6:41] Robert Bannon: Absolutely.

[6:42] Brenda Russell: No no doubt about it. But when you listen to his vocal on your lyrics, you can feel the emotion with the words you chose, the chord changes you make, the shifty, beautiful chord changes you make to elicit that emotion, and then his vocals on it, it is a masterpiece.

[7:01] Robert Bannon: I know. It's great, right?

[7:04] Brenda Russell: Well, the record might be behind her right there, everybody. I mean, that's a big platinum record right there.

[7:09] Robert Bannon: Yeah.

[7:10] Brenda Russell: So when I mean it's gonna be there somewhere.

[7:14] Robert Bannon: Talk about Get Here. I I would that Get Here. Uh you recorded it, Alita Adams at the time during the Gulf War. I remember that song. I remember that song taking off. She's an incredible singer. Her story, also incredible story about being found in a piano bar and right. What what was the inspiration behind that song? You said you I know you told this story many times, but I need to ask.

[7:38] Brenda Russell: That's okay. I don't want to tell it. It's a good story. I was in Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden, they had invited me to perform on a television show. But uh where I was, the my label that I was signed to at the time said, Oh no, you don't need Brandon. Well, how about this artist over here? They're trying to switch up my gig, right? And I I didn't even know that was happening until they finally got me. And they said, We want you. They try to try to get somebody else. But so I went, and um I had a beautiful penthouse apartment in Stockholm where I overlooked the city, and I had a like a beautiful space windows. I forget what it's called when it's around when they're all round like that, but it it was round, and I had a keyboard right there, looking out in the city, and I started writing Get Here, and it was pretty damn easy because it became a game of how many ways can you get to a person? And that's when it starts, you know, really trailing, and you can read things with your mind.

[8:45] Robert Bannon: I love that.

[8:48] Brenda Russell: Well, my favorite part of that song, because I know, like when you talk about it, if you if you all know that song, when you get to the verse, you could windsurf into my life. Yeah, I mean, that's you get creative. You're taking me up on a carpet ride, big balloon. Like you went deep in finding ways we're gonna get here.

[9:03] Brenda Russell: Yeah, that that was the most fun to do because I I was in a game. How many ways? Swing, climb a tree and swing rope to rope.

[9:16] Robert Bannon: Exact exactly right.

[9:18] Brenda Russell: That's what makes it such a brilliant, beautiful um sled slide down the slope. I could keep going with you. I know you know what's funny about the song is my husband and I, he was from he's from Detroit, and I grew up in New Jersey, and we did long distance, and we kept a playlist of music that spoke to us. And one of the first songs I ever put in the playlist is Get Here because I just longed to be with him. And at that time when people were at war, and in a time where we're divisive, and you're in we still are looking to get here. That song will live for forever and ever.

[9:51] Brenda Russell: Thank you so much. You know, I had a very uh um heart heartening experience with a pilot who was in the Gulf War. And he's he said to me, This is backstage after one of my shows, and he said to me, you know, that song Get Here. I I was think that's the song that I would think about when I was flying because I wanted to get back to my family, basically is what he said. Now we're both crying. We're both crying because I'm like, no, you know, you know, but that's just so inspiring that you could touch people in in that kind of tender, deep way, you know.

[10:39] Robert Bannon: Well, your album, this album, this classic album, thank you. This Get Your album. It's track number eight. It's streaming wherever it is. Go back, listen to this album, listen to all the albums, all the music, and listen to the new single, You Know What It's Like as well and all the music that is out. All of it is out. Um when you came up with um Piano in the Dark and now it's been covered and and oh when you talk about a fun, funky you know they say a lot of people credit you for the modern sound in R and B the soul R and B infusion that you put together. People didn't write songs like you had written when you came out with that song.

[11:15] Brenda Russell: Oh thank you. That's amazing. What was the inspiration behind that song?

[11:22] Brenda Russell: Um which song?

[11:24] Robert Bannon: Piano in the Dark.

[11:25] Brenda Russell: Oh my god. Um I ha I wrote it with Scott Cutler and Jeffrey Cole. And they sent me the music on a cartridge. They sent it to me. I played it and thought oh my god this is beautiful beautiful. So I had the book of lyrics. Two days later they call me and say what have you got and I haven't had time but anyway I pick up the book.

[11:49] Brenda Russell: I flip through the pages and I see "Piano in the Dark" and I said, what about "Piano in the Dark"? That's how that happened. Isn't that amazing? And they said, what does that mean? I said, I don't know, but I'll figure it out and that's how that happened. Well, it is quite a romantic song. I mean, I don't know what I don't know who's playing that piano or what's going on, but I'm there. Russell, um, my God, I hate forgetting.

[12:20] Robert Bannon: No, no worries.

[12:22] Brenda Russell: Uh, easy. I want to find out who that pianist is for that. I love Russell Russell. This is so dumb. Anyway, he was with Yellowjackets. If you look up Yellowjackets, okay. Anyway, he's amazing and he played the piano and perfect. Ugh, well, it is the most perfect recording. Make sure it will be another one that will be forever. When you Broadway and the Grammy Award and the movie and all of the work that has been, people say when they do the, when they think they're gonna go to Broadway, you think, oh, I'll just write a couple songs. It's a life full-time job. How many years has The Color Purple kind of consumed your artistic life?

[13:09] Brenda Russell: Well, the five years to write it every day. We spent every day writing, every weekday writing those songs for five years. So we gave up everything. We weren't making money, we were just writing, right? And, um, completely to this day, frantically, the theater thing has gone beyond our wildest dream. I mean, first of all, to have Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg producing the movie of music that you did, what could we get somebody else please?

[13:56] Robert Bannon: Oh, Russell Ferrante, that's his name. Incredible.

[14:01] Brenda Russell: He's so bad. And he played the piano. And it is a killer piano. You gotta listen now. Now I'm gonna listen to it and pull out just the piano in my head. You know, when I saw The Color Purple originally, the first run on Broadway, brilliant. Then we went, I went back, saw the revival. I have never been in an audience before. We're in the middle of a show, people jump out of their seat. You know, I'm here is going to be sung and ruined in audition rooms forever, Brenda. What's the energy like for you to sit and see those artists interpret your words and your music?

[14:46] Brenda Russell: It's heavenly, you know, because it's so gratifying that you actually created something that's still living in these people and so brilliantly performed. I mean, we had it was like a dream.

[15:02] Robert Bannon: Yeah.

[15:04] Brenda Russell: The first night that I went to the theater to see the marquee, it was nighttime and my name was on the marquee, and I was standing there, and I just wanted to say to every person walking by, that's me. I was so excited, you know. But I couldn't even believe it. Incredible, incredible moment. Shout out to Steven and shout out to Allie. They're no slouches themselves. You three are a power couple.

[15:31] Brenda Russell: Stephen Bray and Allie Willis, my beautiful, beautiful friends. Allie passed away in 2019. Sucked big time. I'm still mad that she's not here. But that's what happened. Allie, if you listen to her music, if you love Earth, Wind and Fire and you dance to "September" at every wedding for the rest of eternity, that's her. And Steven, I mean, if you like The Breakfast Club and Madonna, I mean Madonna, that's him right there. And, uh, that's right. You all wrote the music we all grew up to and live on.

[16:03] Robert Bannon: Um, I just before I move on from The Color Purple, I have to just say that I was singing the song "The Color Purple," which it gets stuck in my head. But "Too Beautiful for Words" is one of the most beautiful songs ever written, ever. People please listen to this music. It is incredibly beautiful.

[16:22] Brenda Russell: So for you, finding new music, do you keep a steady schedule? Do you sit at the piano? Do you keep a notebook? How do you work? How does the work work for you?

[16:29] Brenda Russell: I have no rules. First of all, and I tell all my, you know, would-be writers, it's good to have no rules because you're open and then everything comes in. No rules. If it's music on the piano, yes. If it's a lyric line, yes. You know, however it comes. I'm grateful for however I receive it, and I don't want to make rules. Oh, I don't do that. No, let's try it.

[16:57] Robert Bannon: Was there a certain time in your life when you realized you had that gift that you could pick up words or pick up a melody line or hear it?

[17:07] Brenda Russell: A very young age. I used to visit my grandmother because she's the only one that had a piano. And when I would come to her house, I would go straight to the piano. And I wouldn't talk to anybody and I'm trying to pick out "Canadian Sunset," that wonderful song, you know, that I love the melody, and I would pick it out on her piano. I would find things that I could do that. I freaked out one of my uncles who said, oh, Brenda, how do you do that? And I'm like, do what? He was very impressed, and I was very young, but I did have no idea this was going to become my life, you know?

[17:39] Robert Bannon: Yeah, and it's been your life and it's your life and the legacy of music lives on. I will, when I think back to you being young, I think of, um, when you, when I get to speak to some amazing people like you, but when I know about, like, if you look at Ashford and Simpson, you look at Barry Manilow, you look at these backup singers that started out, and I know you were on "Laugh In the Rain," the Neil Sedaka records songs. Did you ever, did you always want to be in front? Were you always trying to be the background? Were you always trying to just be the writer? What was the goal?

[17:39] Brenda Russell: Whatever came and paid us who paid the bills we would take it, but it was so fun, la doing that "Laughter in the Rain" with Neil Sedaka was a brilliant session. That's all I remember, you know, really fun. Your stories have to be incredible to sit down and think about them. You must hear music that are yours or you were a part of when you were at the grocery store or in a cab on a plane. Your music must pop on on television. The Color Purple will be on television for the rest of time.

[17:39] Robert Bannon: Yeah, wonderful. The checks come to the mailbox, let's keep going. Um, so for you, is theater or more solo work or writing for other people? What's the goal now?

[19:10] Brenda Russell: Oh, right now the goal is working on my finishing my album, which is called Songpainter. And, um, it's a beautiful goal because I wrote some good songs and I had wonderful people working with me, and I think people will enjoy it.

[19:28] Robert Bannon: Yeah, are you able to record at home or do you still go into a studio?

[19:32] Brenda Russell: I record at home with my co-producer Stefan Oberhoff, who is like this genius person, and he's in Nashville, so I'll be here. He's in Nashville. We even had a session with Luis Conte, the percussionist. He was in LA and we all did it live on Zoom or whatever. It was so much fun because it taught me you can do this. I, because it wasn't appealing to me to go on Zoom or whatever and make music. Well, this flowed like we were in the same room. That I learned and it was so fun.

[20:13] Robert Bannon: Yeah, the song's great.

[20:16] Brenda Russell: Well, it's gonna be so exciting when it comes out. We'll keep posted. Everybody needs to go to BrendaRussell.com to stay up to date for when the full album is gonna come out. Right now, you can get a hint of it with "You Know What It's Like," co-written with the incredible Roberta Flack, who also recorded the song, God bless her and her voice.

[20:34] Robert Bannon: Um, what a, who like chills.

[20:37] Brenda Russell: I know, really talk about sit down at a piano and be, uh, uh, uh, something. That's she's the, she's, she was a master. Masterful, you know. Alicia Keys is another one. Masterful, but she's got that same vibe to me, that same spirit and vibe to her.

[20:56] Robert Bannon: Yeah.

[20:56] Brenda Russell: And then listen to all the Brenda Russell music. Go revisit some of these incredible albums that you recorded. Go revisit The Color Purple and the music, the, the Cynthia, whatever happened to that Cynthia Erivo, who knows?

[21:09] Robert Bannon: She's, we never heard from her again.

[21:11] Brenda Russell: Where is she? What the biggest, I mean, when we, that's a quick story. When we saw her in The Color Purple in London, because we were deciding to bring her or anyone. We didn't know. And she sang her ass off. And the audience, this is very conservative London. They ran to the stage and started banging on the wooden stage for them to come back. I've never seen anything like that in London because they just don't, they don't do that.

[21:44] Robert Bannon: And so here she comes back and then she just kicks ass.

[21:49] Brenda Russell: It's wicked. Oh my God. Wicked too. I'm telling you, if you were not in the theater to see her do The Color Purple, you missed a once in a, they talk about Jennifer Holliday and Dreamgirls, like a moment that was quintessential, changed theater. Her singing "I'm Here" was a, there will never be a moment like that in the theater.

[22:13] Robert Bannon: Oh, she killed it.

[22:16] Brenda Russell: That's your song. The audience was like they were in church. They were like, yeah, they were just waving.

[22:23] Robert Bannon: It was great. My friend Mike, he's six six, he's a big guy. He jumped out of that seat to cheer after.

[22:32] Brenda Russell: That's the work that you did.

[22:35] Robert Bannon: That's wonderful. I'm so grateful. I'm gonna go in the kitchen, okay, heat up my dinner, and I'm gonna sing your music.

[22:42] Brenda Russell: We're gonna have a little sing along, right? So everybody watching right now, put on Brenda Russell and have a sing along at your house too.

[22:48] Robert Bannon: Thank you, Robert. I hope you have a good meal.

[22:52] Brenda Russell: Thank you. I'm gonna be listening to some good music. And let me tell you that when my show is your show, I want to thank you for every note, every chord, every song, every lyric. You make us feel good, you make us feel love, and you inspire our lives with what you do. So the sacrifice and all the work means so much because you gave us so much love in this world, and we send it back to you.

[23:14] Brenda Russell: Wow, we do.

[23:15] Robert Bannon: It did.

[23:16] Brenda Russell: I feel that.

[23:17] Robert Bannon: Thank you, Robert.

[23:19] Brenda Russell: Thank you, Miss Russell.