>> Really! >> I am sure Laura told me she had played with all manner of people like that, >> I can't recall all the names though. >> I should have thought NJB wasn't that an unsual name... > > i think perhaps she was speaking figuratively when she said it > wasnt the same norma jean bell. thats how i read it at least.
OK, here's the intro from the Straight No Chaser interview... "The Detroit based owner of Pandamonium Records, the woman behind the 1995 classic 'I'm The Baddest Bitch', the sexy sax on those Moodymann 12s, the force (vocals, alto and soprano saxes, keys, drum programmer, producer) behind the 10 track album 'Come Into My Room - that is without a doubt Norma Jean Bell 2001. OK! So who is the sax toting, Afro sporting Norma Jean Bell who, in the mid Seventies, played with rock guitarist Tommy Bolin (into Hendrix and Coltrane/joined Deep Purple and OD'd at 25), was a member of Frank Zappa's band and in the early Eighties climbed on board the Mothership and joined the P Funk All Stars? This Norma Jean Bell is definitely deep, has clearly lived the lide and sounds like she ought to be up there with the women who were in Sly Stone's band or Bobbye Hall who played with Bill Withers... a role model for the women who played with Prince and the sisters who today make up Kelis' band. "That's not me," says Norma Jean over the phone from her home in Westhamption, Michigan, a leafy suburb of Detroit. That's not what I'd been told. I was totally thrown but pressed on. "I've been playing professionally since the Eighties, but I've played music since I was 4... piano... everyone in my family played piano. I took up the clarinet when I was 7... I probably knew from the beginning that I was going to be a musician." I guess she could be speaking figuratively but it sounds to me like they're two different people... Cheers, Tom
