PORT TOWNSEND — Singer Janiva Magness knows exactly what she’s doing on stage — and it’s not just about hitting the right notes.
The job of a musician, she said in a telephone interview this week, is about human connection.
“That’s what people are looking for,” when they come out to a concert hall or a dark nightclub or a piano bar — or when they just tune in to a music program on the radio.
Yes, that’s why we listen, Magness says, whether we recognize it or not.
“We all want to feel we’re not alone in the world. The music is the vehicle,” taking us to that sweet place of comfort and connection.
Sharing sweetness
Magness, a beloved blues vocalist who’s been touring internationally for some 20 years now, plans on sharing some of that sweetness this Saturday night at The Upstage Theatre & Restaurant, 923 Washington St. Tickets to her 8 p.m. concert are $25 in advance at the club, which can be reached at 360-385-2216, or $30 at the door.
The Upstage is “wonderful,” said Magness. “I love it.” It had to be part of her current tour in support of her ninth album, “Devil is an Angel Too.” This record, Magness said, is a trip into the dark and light corners of human nature — a duality she believes all of us share.
Magness herself has traveled through some dark times. When she was a little girl, she dreamed of being an actress or a dancer — something in which she could leap onto a stage — but by her teen years, she was in Detroit’s foster care system, and not dreaming any longer.
Yet “I really, really, really loved music,” she said. “I loved to sing,” and did so along with the TV commercials, and of course with the radio, “always, always, always . . . I guess I did secretly want to try to sing.”
Somewhere along the line, Magness started to believe that she didn’t have a long life ahead of her. People around her died young; she expected the same fate for herself.
So she decided to audition for a singing gig. “I didn’t like the idea of my life going by and never trying,” she said.
Magness got every single gig she auditioned for, whether she wanted it or not. She went to some tryouts just for the practice, and wound up getting a lot of that.
Still, she didn’t think she could make a sustainable living as a performer, so she trained to be a recording engineer, so she could at least be near the making of music.
She landed an internship at a recording studio in St. Paul, Minn., and next thing she knew, one of the studio’s artists asked her to sing backup vocals on a record.
“It seems, in hindsight, that [performing] kind of chose me, rather than me choosing it as a career,” Magness said.
The singer, with her sultry sound and beauty to match, has been winning accolades ever since. In 2009 she was the second woman in history, after Koko Taylor, to be named B.B. King Entertainer of the Year at the 2009 Blues Music Awards in Memphis, Tenn. She’s been hailed by such artists as Mavis Staples, who said of her latest album: “Sista Janiva’s robust and soulful voice is showering each cut with determination to make us all fall in love. Her delivery is as always, sincere and straight from the heart.”
Nominated for honors
Magness has been nominated this year for four Blues Music Awards; the honors will be presented in May.
Just as important to the singer is her work as a spokesperson for National Foster Care Month and ambassador for Foster Care Alumni of America.
Loving foster parents work miracles in children’s lives, Magness writes on her website, www.JanivaMagness.com. And she urges anyone who’s ever thought about foster parenthood to visit www.FosterCareMonth.org.
“You are looking at and listening to one of those very things — a miracle,” Magness says.
These days the singer is writing songs for her next record, and traveling; she has gigs all over the United States and Europe this spring and summer.
When she steps out on stage, Magness puts her spirit and her voice together, like a lifeline.
Out there, “I’m thinking about clearing a path, so I can do my job to the best of my ability,” she said. Her job is “to tell the truth, the truth in the stories, so that connection can happen.”
