Remembering an Iconic Voice in Music and the Community: Nancy Wilson

By Billy Gee

(EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)—- Well, music fans, we’ve just lost another music icon.  On Thursday the 13th of December, the voice of Ms. Nancy Wilson – undisputedly, one of the most mellifluous voices most of us have ever heard – was silenced by her transition from this life, just as the Moon made its transit through Pisces, the sign under which she was born.

I must say, Nancy’s demise was personal for me.  Her sultry voice was so much an integral part of me – so much a part of the musical landscape of my life – that I honestly can’t recall the first time I heard her singing.  I think it might’ve happened around 1962 as a result of my listening to her debut album (‘Remember those?), Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley.  Hearing her sultry voice would cause my pubescent hormones to run wild!  I often would feel as though she was singing to me!  I must’ve dreamed about her dozens of times, growing up in Atlanta and just beginning to learn how to play the piano, myself.  Her recordings of masterpieces like “Guess Who I Saw Today,” “The Grass Is Greener,” “How Glad I Am,” and “When I Look In Your Eyes,” quickly became firmly embedded in my teenage heart, mind, and soul, where they remain until this very day.

Somewhere around my senior year in high school I was fortunate enough to hear Nancy in a live concert at the old Atlanta Municipal Auditorium (where thousands of Atlanta youngsters marched to the tune of “Pomp and Circumstance” at their high school commencement exercise).  Some things you experience in life you never forget, and that was one such occasion for this enthusiastic listener.  Providing instrumental accompaniment to Nancy’s impeccable vocal stylings was trombonist Si Zentner’s big band, so for all of an hour-and-a-half or so yours truly was as close to heaven as he’d ever been.  What stands out in my mind most about that evening is the fact that throughout the entire performance my heart was beating faster than the top speed of the ’67 Chevy Camaro I was pushing back then could run.  I couldn’t have been more excited if Nancy had been sitting in my lap, nibbling on my ear and unbuttoning my shirt!

With that somewhat graphic description of my reaction to an incredibly talented female song stylist, I give you “the Fancy Miss Nancy!” 

Nancy Wilson Biography – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Wilson_(jazz_singer)

Author: WSS News