Two decades after launching a Broadway success near Berklee, vocalist Jennifer Holliday returns to town to start writing the next chapter in her career.

By Rob Hochschild
(November 17, 2000)

	Jennifer Holliday

"I think that this is sending me off now to reach heights I've never known before," said Holliday in a phone call from New York just prior to Berklee's 2000 Convocation. "It's like I'm being passed some kind of magic shoes from [Berklee] . . . this could be the beginning of something incredible for me."

Holliday's enthusiasm stems from a combination of geography, nostalgia, and faith. Boston was the site in 1981 for what Holliday now refers to as the launching pad for her music career. She performed as the lead in Dreamgirls in Boston for three months before she and the company took the show to Broadway and won critical raves there. Her role as Effie White and her show-stopping performance of the first-act closer, "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," earned her both Grammy and Tony Awards.

The Texas-born singer wonders if the Berklee honorary doctorate might be a sign that Boston will be the site of another key career opportunity.

"Could this mean I'll be coming back to Boston in something else?" Holliday asked. "Maybe I'm going to be doing another Broadway show that's going to start in Boston. In my mind, it's like my career is starting again."

Such wide-eyed hope is appropriate for Convocation, one of the likeliest times you'll find someone at Berklee talking about careers starting. It's the night each year when a new freshman class comes together for the first time and considers how to best prepare itself for opportunities that lie ahead.

	Jennifer Holliday performed for and talked to students at Berklee's Depression Seminar in 1999.

"You're always having to prove yourself over and over again," Holliday said. "So you just have to really believe in who you are. Do you believe you have it or not? If you believe in yourself, that comes through to everyone. You stand up, present your true self, and you focus on an audience from your heart. If you believe you've got it, then you can make it."

Born in Houston in 1960, Holliday didn't give much thought during her childhood to a career in music. She sang in the Baptist church where her father was pastor, but she dreamed about following in the footsteps of Barbara Jordan, who became the first black Texan to serve in the U.S. Congress in the 1970s. Jordan served Houston both as a state senator and as a congresswoman, and Holliday heard her give several powerful speeches in person. She says she recalls being inspired by Jordan not only to be a good citizen and a good person, but to pay close attention to words and the way they are spoken. Jordan's oratory style eventually found its way into the singer's approach to performance.

"I was so fascinated by the way Barbara Jordan spoke, how well she enunciated, and I wondered if I could sing like that, to the point where you can really understand the words I'm saying," Holliday said.

A quick listen to Holliday demonstrates that she has learned those lessons. On ballads, she pours heart and soul into every syllable, and on r&b tunes, she can sing with power but never at the sacrifice of the story she's telling. It's a combination of lyric and vocal power that makes her not only a great performer, but a great communicator.

After releasing three albums for Geffen between 1983 and 1987, Holliday's recording career went adrift. Record companies shied away from her music in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Holliday says, because of a reluctance to sign powerful women vocalists.

Holliday hit bottom in 1990. She weighed 340 pounds, had no record deal, and had no idea how to feel good about herself after having fallen so far from her Dreamgirls success. Mired in depression, she attempted suicide by swallowing an overdose of sleeping pills.

In the weeks that followed, Holliday began a recovery that consisted of receiving clinical help for her depression, losing weight, and investigating alternatives to making a living as a recording artist.

Last year, Holliday led a depression seminar at Berklee and talked about her recovery.

"I felt no one would love me if I wasn't singing, so I had to go deep inside; it took a lot of therapy," Holliday said. "I looked at a pattern where I placed myself behind others because of my weight problem. I lost about 200 pounds but still didn't feel good about myself. Love yourself, find out the things you like about you, the things you love about you, and work on improving things you don't like about you."

	Jennifer Holliday and Berklee President Lee Eliot Berk.

The bias against "intense" women vocalists that once threatened Holliday's career appears to have reversed itself, she explained, pointing to the success of artists like Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, and Celine Dion. It has also helped renew interest in her career; two labels have released "Best of . . . " compilations under Holliday's name in the last few years. She hopes to go back into the studio soon and record an album that will reflect her varied musical interests, moving from ballads and Broadway to gospel and r&b.

But for the celebrated singer who now, in her own words, has "no irons in the fire," Holliday is resolved to take things a day at a time. "A whole new world's opening up because I don't know what's going to be happening," she said, adding that "groundedness" is a key. "You can't get discouraged if no one's paying attention to you. Just stay true to what you want to do, and have something to fall back on."

Convocation 2000 Coverage
•	Attitude Songs Steve Vai and Jennifer Holliday help welcome Berklee's largest-ever entering class.
•	Opening Your Musical Mind Jennifer Holliday draws up a lengthy listening list for aspiring vocal performers.
•	Rock Guitar's Top Gun For rock's reigning guitar hero Steve Vai '79, music comes from the heart and mind . . . with an edge.