In Memoriam: Marlena Shaw (1939-2024)

Remembering this consummate song stylist whose jazz and disco stylings fused with witty monologues introduced her to audiences around the world.

On Friday, January 19th, music lovers around the world were saddened to hear of the death of supreme song stylist Marlena Shaw at the age of eighty-one.

Perhaps most remembered by the masses for her signature song, “Yu-Ma/Go Away Little Boy,” her take on a Carole King/Gerry Goffin composition that had been a #1 hit for Donny Osmond as “Go Away Little Girl” in 1971. While Shaw had recorded it initially in 1969 for Cadet Records, it was her second reinterpretation at Columbia Records in 1977 that became a hit, peaking at #21 on Billboard’s R&B chart, and hitting Cash Box’s pop chart.

Shaw managed to traverse the changing times of popular music in the seventies and eighties, bringing disco, R&B and adult contemporary music together with her jazz roots. As the nineties turned into the 2000s, she recorded almost exclusively in the jazz field, touring internationally until she retired from the road in the early 2010s.

When sampling emerged, two of her tracks, the Ashford & Simpson-penned “California Soul” and her own co-written “Woman of the Ghetto,” became underground classics for an entirely new generation all around the world, finding their way into television commercials and on to dance floors once again.

But no matter the genre or era, it was Ms. Shaw that people connected with. The monologues in her songs were riddled with wisdom, wit and truth that audiences identified with. Such monologues began early in her career as between-song patter that soon made their way into the recording studio. She told The Advocate in 1979,

“I am about communication. I like to remain open; even when I perform, I like to be spontaneous. I talk on stage, incorporating everything I hear and do to make my act me. If you want to hear my records, buy my records—please, buy my records—but if you come to see me, don’t expect just to hear my records.”

In 2007, I was hosting a radio show and reached out to Ms. Shaw’s management about an interview. A few weeks later, I got an email from Ms. Shaw herself saying that she’d love to join me. We talked about her early gospel and jazz influences, the distinct way she inserted herself into her art and the ways that European and Japanese audiences, in particular, remained active fan bases after the commercial phase of her career had ended in the United States. I’m sharing that interview below for the first time since it aired in 2007.

I wanted to share some of Ms. Shaw’s gospel/inspirational gems that she recorded throughout her career, including her rendering of Dorothy Love Coates’ “No Hiding Place,” her own composition (on which she accompanied herself on piano) “The Lord Giveth,” and her interpretation of Marvin Gaye’s “Save the Children.”

Sending condolences to the Shaw family and to all who knew and loved this remarkable human being.

Before You Go…

There will be two newsletters this week. I’ll be following up on Thursday with my interview with Bob Marovich about his book, Peace Be Still: How James Cleveland and the Angelic Choir Created a Gospel Classic, as promised in the last newsletter!

Have you started listening to the God’s Music Is My Life podcast? We are four episodes in! The latest episode, my interview with author Elizabeth Cunningham, was released yesterday! You can listen on Spotify or Apple!