Freda Payne’s name is forever associated with her 1970 classic hit song, ”Band of Gold.” But Payne says she was “bred as a jazz singer” and that’s why playing jazz icon Ella Fitzgerald felt natural to her. “It came easy for me,” she said.
“I feel that it’s sort of my calling to play Ella because I’ve done it so many times. This is my fifth time.” Payne portrays Ella Fitzgerald in the jazz musical, “Ella, First Lady of Song,” from May 29 to June 23 at Meadow Brook Theatre in Rochester Hills.
Conceived by Maurice Hines and written and directed by Lee Summers, the musical traces the 60-year career of the singer who won a contest at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre at 15 and later performed around the world. “It’s loosely based on her life,” Payne said. “When her mother died, (Ella was 15).
She was left with her stepfather who abused and molested her. We depict that in the play. She was living on (the) streets.
She started out as a dancer and she was good at it. She was begging.” Then, she entered a contest at the Apollo Theater in Harlem in 1934.
“It was a fluke,” Payne said. “She entered the contest as a dancer and when she got out there, she realized because she’d seen the previous acts, she wasn’t as good as she thought she was. The audience started shouting, ‘Do something, don’t just stand there.
’ She sang, ‘The Object of My Affection’ — which her mother used to sing to her. She didn’t even know she had (a) good voice an.