Flash forward from
the music that exploded in the late 1940s and you’ll be swimming in a sea of
white. Black is beautiful, but today, it’s rarely considered rock ‘n’ roll.
“I think it is,” says New York City rocker Danielia
Cotton. “Blacks were instrumental in rock ‘n’ roll coming into play. No one
gives us that credit. I think there’s a slight bit of racism in the industry in
the sense that people just want to see you do soul music. It’s become that way
because very few have crossed over and been successful. I think it’s harder
because we haven’t remained visible in that genre.”
But
Danielia Cotton is.
Cotton recently
opened for The Derek Trucks Band in Rochester during the Jazz Festival. As she
and her backing band nonchalantly took to the outdoor bandstand, nobody knew
what to expect. Within minutes, everybody was blown away.
They tore into their
set voraciously, immediately hitting a passion peak — as opposed to the
dynamic tease ‘n’ build some artists choose. Pedal kissed metal from song one.
Switching between
acoustic guitar and singing with Joe Cocker-with-a-feminine-twist moves, Cotton
belted, bellowed, shouted, and sang. Her songs combined a singer-songwriter
tone with rock passion and determination, all of it seasoned with anger and
joy. Her voice soared the East Avenue sky, breaking just when the lyrics
sounded as if they couldn’t take it anymore. She was mesmerizing. People were
knocked out.
“They’re doubly
thrown back because you’re black and half Hispanic,” Cotton says. That
shouldn’t matter, but it does.
“People want young and
obvious,” she says. Cotton’s talent is obvious, but she wouldn’t fit into the current wave of adolescent concubines
the big wigs tout.
“I’m not 17,” she
says. “And if you say to somebody you’ve passed over the 30 threshold, they’re
like ‘ohmigod’ and you know, that’s not old. But when you hear me, how could I
sing those stories? How could I sing that way? It came from a life, it came from a life. I couldn’t have
sung that way at 17 — nor could Janis Joplin, nor could Tina Turner, who made
her debut in rock ‘n’ roll at 40.”
“It was a rocky road
in my life,” she says. “It’s all made me, me. I rose above it. I got out. I
went to college, and you know, I’m here and I’m telling my stories in these
songs.”
The songs on her
self-released EP are full of a resilience that shrugs off life’s trouble,
making the most of it.
Rock
‘n’ roll seemed like an obvious outlet.
“It’s great music in
that it’s sort of cathartic,” she says. “You can really let a lot out. I like
that about rock ‘n’ roll; it can tell a story but it’s also a great release.”
Cotton’s tunes are
fleshed out in such a way it’s easy to see where they came from: They’re lean
and tight interpretations of simple, beautiful ideas accompanied by simple,
beautiful hooks. They may not come from a place of splendor, but Cotton’s
brassy patina sure makes them sound that way.
“What I do is I get
to recycle pain,” she says, “and make it something beautiful and give it to
other people so they know they are not the only one. And it’s great. I think
that’s the beauty of art. Most artists have these tortured souls and they need
some outlet for that. And that’s extraordinary.”
Some might be quick
to point out she’s still just a singer in a band.
“Am I a singer?” she
asks. “No. Am I an artist? Yeah. Yeah.”
Danielia Cotton plays Wednesday, July 13, at The Montage Grille, 50 Chestnut Street, 232-1520,
at 8 p.m. Tix: $15. 21+
This article appears in Jul 6-12, 2005.
