It is a windy Saturday afternoon a week earlier and we are sitting in her kitchen over cocktails and catching up like old girlfriends.  Periodically, the room erupts in laughter over something she has said in her characteristic sugar-free way. She was talking about her grandmother, Beatrice Anna Lee Williams; the woman she credits as helping to build her own backbone. Beatrice, born in 1899, was a sharecropper in Meridian, Mississippi, with nine children- the first was born when she was only eleven years old. Her husband often had to travel during the seasons and she would have to stay home and tend to their piece of farmland while also doing other jobs such as washing and cleaning to supplement her income.

“My grandmother was a self employed entrepreneur woman. And people told her ‘You’re not going to be able to take care of nine kids during the day’.  And she would say ‘can’t nothin’ can’t like a butthead bull’.” Beatrice bought her first house in Warren, Ohio, in 1950, and moved during a blizzard, the first time she had ever seen snow. This, of course did not sit well with the folks back home in Mississippi who tried to discourage her more. Shaun continues, “They said, “You gonna move to Ohio? Have you lost your mind Beatrice? You can’t take a hold of all those kids and….” Shaun flexes her bicep muscles and shouts “HA!” as the room erupts in more laughter.

Shaun continues, “And all her kids got college degrees and were professional people that could still plant a seed and grow a garden and could still slaughter a hog if need be. And that is the type of woman I wanted to be all my life. The nerve to think that I can pull it off comes from my grandma. That is exactly where my strength comes from.”

She explains that while she got her backbone from Beatrice, her ability to sing and perform was groomed in her grandfather’s church by the tender age of three. She watched the reaction her grandfather would get from the pulpit and knew even then she wanted to get that same reaction. “I was in my grandfather’s church and I was ready to sing my song and he let me. ‘Jesus loves me this I know for the bible tells me so…..’ And I had another one- ‘this little light of mine’. And I could see the ladies in the church reacting and they liked it. I was doing my thing and it was the day the spirit of the music connected for me. I knew I wanted to do it. I knew I could do it.”

Her grandmother’s strength and stubbornness coupled with her grandfather’s lessons in stage presence have served her well over the years. It was evident as a teenager early in her music career that she was not easily broken. Shaun had already been picked apart as far as her look and complexion were concerned, becoming all too familiar with the superficial side of the business that chose to package young women as products, molding them into an ideal rather than enhancing what made them unique and beautiful in their own right.

Shaun was told by the first group that hired her that she had legs like tree stumps. “I didn’t really know how to take it. It made me feel funny but I still got the job”.  Later, after she had moved to Columbus, she went to work as a songwriter at a different studio. The owners actually told her that she had some talent and might actually go somewhere but that she was really “brown” and just did not have the look. They even sent a lighter skinned girl instead of Shaun to a record company audition in California to sing a song Shaun had written.

How did Shaun Booker take that? “I took that like “I’m gonna whoop your little ass!” (more laughter) Watch Me! That’s what I took it like. Watch Me! Yes they were looking for a certain look. Well, you know the lighter the skin, the more saleable you were especially back in those days. I think a lot of that has blurred now and I am so happy but it wasn’t helping me back then. I was the last one to be noticed until I opened my mouth and then they heard the voice and when they heard the voice they could get past what they thought they saw, you know what I mean? I didn’t get discouraged, I just got more angry!

“But I knew one day that justice would be done. Somehow someway, one day it’s gonna come around. And you know the girl…. I saw her at the bus stop ( laughter) trying to get on the bus one day and she don’t have that pretty face no more, ok? And I still think I’m kinda cute!”

It is not difficult to understand perhaps where Shaun Booker may have been mistaken for an enigma considering her larger than life voice, dramatic stage personae, and chiseled, striking features. Shaun exudes an almost elusive charm. She seems to grab you by the collar with her forceful delivery, all while her eyes pierce you, giggle at you and shy away all at the same time. Taut, firm and graceful arms float around like a butterfly alighting from a flower.... but only a really tough flower could hold her. It would have to be fragrant, delicate, and strong all at the same time. My vote would be the magnolia, despite obvious irritating references to the stage play and movie that mentions the word ‘steel’ in its title. 

Even still, she is quite comfortable walking among us mere mortals and prefers it, actually. A self-described crossword nerd with a fondness for getting her hands dirty in the garden...believe it or not, she knows that part of what makes her relatable to the rest of us is her humanness.  Shaun Booker may seem a lot of things to a lot of people: goddess voice, backbone of steel to some, an enigma and perhaps even too cocky to others. It is accurate to describe her as at least half understood. What some recognize as assertive confidence in her, others diminish as arrogant cockiness. She acknowledges, “I think some people may think that I am scary (laughter), some might say I’m tough. But what a lot of folks might not know  is I am really a soft-hearted person. I work off emotion and even if it comes across as…..boisterous or whatever, it’s just really passion”. Still, she knows where she has come from, knows she has taken detours, and knows exactly how to get herself back on track whenever she strays from the path she has set for herself. She makes no apology for any of it.

Shaun is moved instinctively wherever the spirit takes her.  “ I think it may have gotten me into trouble a couple times because things I say may be taken in the wrong context but my intentions are good and that’s what I really work at, the intent of my lyrics. I don’t really want to be misunderstood but I was called an enigma one time. I looked up the word in the thesaurus and it means puzzling. So I thought about that. If I am puzzling to people, it’s because I have so many different places that I come from. My family is so varied and I love all different sorts of music and I have been thrown into so many situations where I have had to have a sort of buoyancy to make me be prepared for anything. That’s why I guess I’m bold in my statements because I’ve actually done it and what’s to be scared of? I can’t live my life scared.”

Shaun emphasizes that she wants to pass on some of that resoluteness and assuredness especially to the women in her audience. “I just know that there are so many demands and so many things that a woman has to do and we get down on ourselves sometimes and maybe we don’t have that right dress and maybe our hair isn’t acting right all the time and I want us all to know that we still have a place in this world and we have to put it out there anyway. You know, maybe someone needs to see some of our raggedy days. There are days when I am raggedy! I don’t put on a stitch of makeup and those are some of my best days when I’m digging in the dirt out there and that is probably a side of me most people don’t see. They don’t know that I do but I love planting in the garden and things like that. I don’t mind getting mud and dirt under my nails and I might have to go and do a quick manicure after the fact but I love to do it!”

Perhaps the most profound moment while watching her that day at the Thirsty Ear came when her face shone with pride and love as she introduced her son, Sam , aged 11, to sit in with the band. It was clear that she did not possess the words to sum up her intense feelings not only to have such a handsome, thoughtful and talented young man as a son, but to also have him join her “on the job”. Rather, it was written, emblazoned all over her face. “I appreciate all that I have. If I had gone out there and been a rock star when I was in my twenties and stuff like that, I could have been used and abused and done like hell and then I would not have what I have now. Raising my son, holding a job as long as I did and buying property kept me grounded enough because I probably would have went off the charts.”

She is very excited about the future as she discusses her plans in the next few years. “I wanna do some kid’s songs. I think with the new president, now they see that there is more opportunity than they thought. But I think I can make them understand in a little more immediate sense in the next couple of years. I wanna work with kids. I am trying to have this garden thing for the kids and some parents who are working and don’t necessarily have things for the kids to do while they’re at work. It would be sorta like a latchkey program. I want them working in the garden. I would like some songs to go along with that. You know give the kids some kinda “Cant nothing can but a bullhead bull kinda thing”.”

Shaun has also been working on a new concept for a record that incorporates more of a jazz sound that was inspired by one of her heroes, Ella Fitzgerald. “Yes, I have a lot of new songs, Some of these are really grown up, torch songs. Ella had an amazing quality and could do anything with her voice.” Shaun is working on crafting the arrangements that will showcase her amazing power and vocal versatility. “I am gonna work with my old friend, Lee Wexler who I adore and I also need some piano in them, so I am looking for the right piano player to help me paint the picture. I want a full horn section and piano to add to the bass drums and guitar.

“My thing now is beefing up the business end- making a viable, sustainable product and a brand that is self sustaining,” she explains, “ It is one thing to do a gig or two on the weekend to fill up your gas tank but it is actually another to make a decent wage. I will be working on traveling more. I plan eventually on going to Europe to do some shows. As you know the club scene is very limiting and I would like to branch out on trips to places like Chicago, California. I might even like to play Vegas!

These days, Shaun is backed by Justin Brown on the drums, L.A. Sky on the trumpet, Mike Dudley on the guitar and alternates between Ron Henderson and Larry Humphrey on bass. It is about seven in the evening on Sunday, June 28, and we are in front of the Bozo Stage at Comfest. I am watching Shaun and her band and thinking how far she must have come since singing “This Little Light of Mine” at the age of three in her grandfather’s church.  I am trying to reconcile the person on stage with the person I was laughing over a beer with just a few weeks prior. Her voice is otherworldly, her outfit enhances her mysterious, sensual quality. She has the exclusive command of everyone’s attention that day. I decide after a while that Shaun Booker really is no enigma, as she herself excellently sums up to the audience, “I’m Shaun Booker, dammit!”

It is all explained in those four words. And then she lifts her hands to the sky and opens her mouth to sing. As if on cue, the hair on the back of everyone’s necks stands up in unison.