Songs and vintage videos, plus two amazing concerts that provided the soul music soundtrack for my 1960s/70s coming-of-age journey to find love, the Big Truth, and my daughter. Features the Temptations, Otis Redding, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Junior Walker and the All Stars, Ben E. King, Janis Joplin, Pharoah Saunders, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Johnnie Taylor, Jimmy Ruffin, Van Morrison, Stevie Wonder, the Rolling Stones, Nina Simone, the Clark Sisters, Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Al Green, Bobby Womack, the Mighty Clouds of Joy, Marvin Gaye, the Soul Stirrers, Shirley Caesar, Jimmy Cliff, the Persuasions, the Four Tops, the Marvelettes, Earth, Wind and Fire, the Emotions, Wilson Pickett, Ike and Tina Turner, Bo Diddley. and more. From my book, SINCE I LOST MY BABY: A MEMOIR OF TEMPTATIONS, TROUBLE & TRUTH (OG Press) on sale June 2020.
Slightly tweaked for a storytelling night based on the movie “PSYCHO,” I shared the truly insane tale of being a pregnant teenager sent away to the Florence Crittenton Home for Unwed Mothers in Lincoln Heights (Los Angeles) in 1966, just as the cultural revolution, the Sunset Strip Riots, and the Summer of Love was about to get underway.
Upon our reunion in 1991, my daughter Kalila Ahmad (then known as Ellen Garner) and I were featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
Some days the only person who makes sense is Al Green.
Vic and I had a blast at the launch of SINCE I LOST BABY talking about soul music, gospel, my daughter, and how vital it is to be in the Positivity Posse family. Tune in!
Lori Yerxa and I talked story through nearly every theme in my memoir SINCE I LOST MY BABY, including the loss (and found) of my daughter taken from me at birth, what lockdown in the cuckoo’s nest of a home for unwed mothers was like (and how that’s changed since the 1960s), my soul music journey and its heartbreaks, life in 1970s Oakland, California, and surviving domestic violence. Lori is the author of the inspiring Rex Patrick story, PUSHING THROUGH.
The premiere Launch Party for my coming-of-age memoir SINCE I LOST MY BABY was hosted by my friends Akosua Busia and her sister Dr. Abena P.A. Busia, Ghana’s Ambassador to Brazil. We zoomed across three countries, Ghana, Brazil and the U.S. and had a blast. I did four readings from the book.
Take a trip through the soul music soundtrack of my 1960s/70s coming-of-age journey. From SINCE I LOST MY BABY: A MEMOIR OF TEMPTATIONS, TROUBLE & TRUTH This playlist highlights vintage era videos.
The artists performing in these two concerts, the 1964 TAMI Show and a 1982 Gospel Concert at Oakland's Paramount Theater, were instrumental in my coming-of-age journey. That story is told in my book, SINCE I LOST MY BABY: A MEMOIR OF TEMPTATIONS, TROUBLE & TRUTH.
I sat down with acclaimed author and book influencer Annie Cathryn for a heart-to-heart, soul-to-soul chat about my journey and my memoir, SINCE I LOST MY BABY. WATCH OUR INTERVIEW.
Witnessing the epic performance of James Brown and the Famous Flames at the 1964 taping of the TAMI show was the beginning of my teenage obsession with soul music. Look for me in the audience!