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On Broadway, it’s a well known fact that performers who can sing, dance and act with equal proficiency are known as “triple threats.”
But when it comes to sheer talent, over the course of her decades-long career you could say that Vanessa Williams has come to represent a “quadruple threat”—having conquered the worlds of Broadway, film, television and the recording industry. Four Emmy nominations, 11 Grammy nominations, a Tony nomination, three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, seven NAACP Image Awards and three Satellite Awards are just some of her accolades.
On Saturday, August 4, Ms. Williams brings her talent and her band of 21 years to the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center to present “Save the Best for Last…” an evening of song from Billboard to Broadway.
Fans can expect to hear her big hits, including “Save the Best for Last,” “The Sweetest Days,” and “Colors of the Wind,” Ms. Williams’s platinum single from the “Pocahontas” soundtrack, which won the Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe for Best Original Song. But they will also be treated to a number of selections from shows like Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods,” and songs from the many other musical genres that have inspired Ms. Williams over the course of her long career.
“The show is a combination of pop, R&B, the great American song book—my latest album is my take on that and we just finished doing the mastering of it,” she explained in a recent phone interview. “I switch it up depending on where I am.”
When asked how her musical tastes have changed over the years, Ms. Williams said, “I don’t think they have changed. I think they’ve expanded.”
With a musical upbringing as varied as her current repertoire, Ms. Williams recalls that the influences in her early years ran the gamut and were inspired by her parents as well as popular culture.
“I love Brazilian music and Sérgio Mendes’s Brasil ’66—I grew up on that. Also Sondheim, which is as musical theater as you can get,” she said. “My parents were music teachers, so we had my concerts plus their concerts. At an early age I was exposed to classical music like Bach and Handel. But there was also Tito Puente, Richie Havens and The Beatles—my dad had all that. My mother loved gospel, Johnny Mathis and Roberta Flack.”
When she began purchasing music on her own in the mid-1970s, it was by groups like the Jackson 5. She also recalls listening to WRVR, a New York jazz station.
“I listened to it in high school. I was also playing French horn, listening to Jean-Luc Ponty’s musical jazz, Chaka Khan—I loved her fire—and Angela Bofill who was esoteric and jazz-fusion based.
Ultimately, it was Broadway, and her proximity to it from her home in Westchester County, that proved to be the biggest inspiration for Ms. Williams.
“I remember seeing Stephanie Mills at age 12 in ‘The Wiz’—she was belting it out,” she said. “I thought this is exciting. When you grow up so close to New York City, you can just go in on the train to do an audition.”
Ms. Williams has spent a good deal of time on Broadway stages and her most recent credits include “The Trip to Bountiful” in which she co-starred with Cicely Tyson in 2013, “After Midnight” in 2014, and a special limited engagement in “Hey, Look Me Over” earlier this year at New York City Center.
On whether she considers herself a singer or an actress first, Ms. Williams said “I would have to say musical theater first. I feel most at home there.”
She added that one of her favorite parts of the process comes in creating a musical on the first day, when the music director sits in the middle of a room surrounded by the cast, each member with a music stand, a copy of the score and a pencil ready for the initial run-through.
“It’s new music and an opportunity to create a character and listen to others in an ensemble, then there’s the choreography,” said Ms. Williams, who began her life as a performer by dancing at age 3, eventually adding singing and acting to her skill set. It is those theater skills that she now relies on when performing at venues like the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center.
“When I get behind a mic when I’m recording and on stage, I’m stepping into a character—that lends itself to my theater background,” explained Ms. Williams, who trained at Syracuse University. “I’m saying, this evokes a certain tone, this is Latin, so I have to bring my Latin salsa sensibilities to this song.”
Ultimately, in deciding what genres and songs she will perform at any given show, Ms. Williams often lets the audience lead the way.
“If I’m doing a benefit and I peek out and see a lot of gray hair, I’ll do ‘Bill’ from ‘Show Boat’ and bulk up our Broadway set,” she explained. “But if it’s an urban crowd I’ll do ‘Everlasting Love’ or Chaka Khan.”
Ms. Williams also finds that her audiences now span generations—many of her fans are now under 40 and they know her not from her work on Broadway or as the first black Miss America, but primarily as Wilhelmina Slater, the villainous character she played on the ABC series “Ugly Betty.”
“I’m always surprised. They appreciate the music,” she said. “It’s great to be able to flex those muscles. Variety is the spice of life, so I’m lucky to do so many things.”
Vanessa Williams performs “Save the Best for Last…” on Saturday, August 4, at 8 p.m. at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $100, $140 and $165. Call 631-288-1500 or visit whbpac.org.
on Jul 20, 2018