Ars Longa Vita Brevis- Art is long and life is short
Initially posted as an article on my Facebook page back on December 28,2010. Since then, I have shared it each year in honor of her birthday. One of the coolest things about having my own blog now is that this tribute now has a permanent home. Happy Earthday to Teena Marie; one of the brightest sparks to ever light this universe!
"Ars Longa Vita Brevis- Art is long and life is short"
(That is all the latin I know, and I only know it because Teena Marie quoted it on the back of the album jacket that would change my life.)
"FLASHBACK WHO'S THAT DANCIN' TO THE LATEST"~
1981. Nashville, Tn. End of the school year: my friend Monique Ballard puts on "Square Biz" and proceeds to demonstrate the latest dance custom-designed for long-legged skinny girls whose parents can afford Calvin Klein jeans. I sigh, plop my "no-dancin", Cheryl Tiegs-clad butt down on the shag carpet next to the record player, and pick up the record jacket. Up to that day my personal album collection consisted of one family name- The Jacksons. Everything else I heard on radio or via my parents and I was cool with that. "Bay-Bee what's happening entre vous Lady Tee"...
The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but I'd never heard the name before. I pulled out the sleeve and hit pay dirt- LYRICS!!! I knew I would never get those dance steps down, but this rhyme thing was different. My daddy is a poet and I loved poetry- yet this was something more. I had never heard this kind of swing & swag from a female voice, and she name-checked Maya AND Shakespeare- WHO WAS THIS LADY TEE!?!?!?! The song finished and the next thing I heard was this bass walk that hit me right between the everything~
"Saw Cradle playin' in the school yard one day/pretty young boy I takes him home to play/soon we was hangin' Venice alley way"~ I don't know how long I sat there, stunned. I know that Monique eventually got mad because I kept playing the same album over and over, so she turned off the record player and told me we had to watch tv. (CONFESSION- I became a thief at the age of 11 when I folded up that record sleeve with those lyrics and put them in my pocket, but I HAD to take Teena home with me!)
A few months later, I was in San Bernardino with my dad and this precious record sleeve (that I had memorized by then). I knew the name of the band (Stone City Band), every lyric, and that they had all been written by Teena Marie. By then I also knew that I had heard some of her other songs in passing; "I'm Just A Sucka For Your Love", "Fire and Desire", and "I Need Your Lovin", all radio cuts. I read in Right On Magazine of the passionate affair between Teena Marie and Rick James (whoever "he" was- lol). I stalked the Mighty 147 (WVOL) in Nashville and repeatedly called to request her songs. I often came up empty because they would only play the singles, and I was already in way deeper than that. Daddy took me to GrooveTime Records on Baseline, his friend Grover's record store so that I (finally) get my own personal copy of IT MUST BE MAGIC. I grabbed it along with everything else I could find with her name on it: WILD & PEACEFUL, IRONS IN THE FIRE, LADY TEE, and even an album by this "Rick James" dude because it had her voice on it.
She was on tour with Rick James, and I wanted to go- my "with-it/hip/rebel poet" daddy said "Rick James can go bump and grind in front of somebody's else's 12 year old daughter," and that was the first of many missed opportunities for me to see Teena in concert!
"BEHIND THE GROOVE/THERE'S ANOTHER SIDE INSIDE OF YOU..."~I was no stranger to good music. My parents had fed me a steady diet of Stevie, Marvin, Marley, Minnie, and Earth Wind & Fire. I had been in presence of some of these same great artists because my parents knew them. I appreciate the great talent of those musicians, I was raised on it.I knew good stuff when I heard it- but Teena was more than that. She was CLASSIC/was BLUES/was RHYTHM/was JAZZ and she ROCKED and FUNKED life UP with that guitar when she got goin'. The wail and the swing in her voice pushed buttons and kicked down doors in my spirit like nothing else I could describe, and when it got there it came with a language that dug through the jumbled blocks in my heart and arranged them in a way that made sense. I didn't just listen to her music- I felt it move through me like light flooding a dark tunnel.
"MAYBE THAT WILL EXPRESS WHAT I BEEN GOING THRU"~
Teena's music was a living breathing energy that stopped me in my tracks, pierced my silence, and demanded to know what I really thought and felt about things. It seemed to know how much I missed my daddy; how out of place I felt because I didn't have my own house more longer than 3 months at a time; how angry I was that the grownups in my life never seemed to notice how much I HATED the decisions they made about my life.
"WHEN I SAY THAT I'M A LONELY GIRL ITS ONLY CUZ I'M NAKED TO THE WORLD"~
Intensity that I had held back with good books and hot bread finally had a place to go. "We need a whole new constitution, cuz any old revolution won't do"- My parents have Lady Tee to thank for me never becoming a drug addict or full-fledged juvenile delinquent.
"YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME WITH YOUR EYES; MY HEART SOARS UP TO THE SKIES"~
- When I was old enough to really fall in love for the first time, Teena did not disappoint: "If I could paint a picture of the love I have inside"...
- When I got my heartbroken and couldn't "Love anymore, words I thought I never would say; If love is just a game then, I don't want to play"...
- When I got married: "We fly sky high, fiddle dee dee, look who's turned around and fell in love with me"...
"NOW WE LIVE IN SEPARATE WORLDS, BUT HERE INSIDE I'M STILL YOUR LITTLE GIRL..."~
When my mother suddenly left this earth and I was impressing everyone around me with my strength and "cool"- taking on a teenage sister and brother to raise along with my own kids, I poured my heart out to the tune of Lady Tee and confessed into my pillow that I felt like an angel with a fear of flying: "Stop the world, I want to get off. It's turning much too fast"..."Sunny skies, it's funny you and I; we're both so blue, do you feel the things I do"; "Where is the love that you made me?"
"HEART TO HEART YOU TOUCHED MY SOUL"~
Hers was a voice that articulated ME to ME and kept me from shutting down and dropping out. More importantly- it keep my soul alive long enough for me to finally let GOD back into it:"Last night Jesus shined a heavenly light through my window in the dark of night". Teena Marie was the best friend I never met. From city to city - country to country- state to state, and state of mind to state of mind that music was my constant companion. I often wondered how so much passion, love, wisdom, faith, rhythm, blues, funk, jazz, bebop,SOUL could pour forth from one body and not leave it empty- but life has taught me that when we allow our God given gifts to flow through us into the universe our Heavenly Father will keep our spring eternally full to overflow. Giving all we got doesn't diminish our life- it opens up the channel for us to truly live and be all that GOD designed us to be.
This year I have learned over and over again how seemingly periphery events can impact us directly when we are truly connected. I love and appreciate the artistry and spirit of Teena Marie, but I know that she is much more than that to a daughter, a mother, her family and friends.
My prayers and love for her family and friends are the best gratitude I can send to say "Thank You", Lady Tee- for being the wings on which many personal miracles flew for me.
BLESSED LOVE