Nancy Wilson (February 20, 1937 – December 13, 2018) – Tree Of Life (1976)
Nancy Wilson (February 20, 1937 – December 13, 2018) – Tree Of Life (1976)
WIlson's beautiful, poetic song about life and death appeared on her 1976 LP This Mother's Daughter, and was written and produced by Eugene McDaniels.
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Nancy Wilson was a versatile jazz, blues, R&B, soul and pop vocalist who recorded more than 70 albums over five decades and won three Grammys during her career.
Wilson was born in Ohio and sang in church choirs. She met Cannonball Adderley while he was on tour, who recommended that she move to New York City if she wanted to become a singer. In 1959, she followed his advice and was soon singing four nights a week at the Blue Morocco club. She was signed by Capitol Records within a year.
Throughout the sixties, her songs were staples of the pop and R&B charts. From 1964-65, she had four albums reach the Top 10 of the Billboard 200.
She appeared on television frequently, and began acting on various shows. She was given her own series on NBC, The Nancy Wilson Show (1967–1968), which won an Emmy although it only ran for one season.
Wilson’s beautiful, poetic song “Tree Of Life” appeared on her 1976 Capitol LP This Mother's Daughter. A reflection on life, death and the passage of time, it was written by Eugene McDaniels (1935 – 2011), the genius singer-songwriter who also produced the album, penned its title track, co-wrote two other cuts and sang backing vocals.
Eugene McDaniels in 1975.
It was Wilson’s funkiest record except for her full-on disco LP Life, Love and Harmony (1979), and featured George Duke on piano on the mellow slow jam “China.” Other highlights included the superb jazz-disco flavored “Now” and the gorgeous, spiritual jazz-funk love song that opened the album, “From You To Me To You.“
“Tree Of Life” was arranged by Dave Grusin, who also played piano. It featured Hugh McCracken on guitar, Chuck Rainey on bass, and Steve Gadd on drums. Backing vocals were arranged by Morgan Ames and included herself plus Afreeka Trees, Carla Bee, Jackie Ward, Jim Gilstrap, Lisa Roberts, Carolyn Willis (one of the three members of Honey Cone), and McDaniels.
Listening to this song is a deep experience. McDaniels’ profound lyrics encourage us to reflect on time’s relentless march, life's ups and downs, and how some things always seem to cycle back around.
In my mind it will forever be linked to something I learned about the night before hearing “Tree Of Life” for the first time, a dark episode involving the suicide of Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner’s executive secretary in early 1975. Her name was Bobbie Arnstein, and she was also one of his closest friends. She was targeted by the feds in a vicious attempt by Republican prosecutors (including future Illinois governor “Big” Jim Thompson) to nail Hefner by entangling him in a drug investigation, in the hopes of destroying his publishing empire.
A grieving Hefner reacts to the suicide of Bobbie Arnstein.
Hefner was an early financial supporter of NORML (the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), and funded other liberal causes through his Playboy Foundation. Between his progressive, pro-legalization political agenda and very public role as pied piper of the sexual revolution (no less a cultural authority than Roger Ebert called Playboy “the most influential magazine of its time”), he made a lot of enemies in the conservative, puritan, law-and-order establishment of the 1960s and early 70s, and they seized their chance to try to bring him down.
But the tragedy was that Arnstein, described by those who knew her as a fragile, gentle, brilliant soul, got caught in the crossfire, sentenced to an excessive fifteen-year jail term on trumped-up charges, all in the hopes that she would implicate her boss for something he didn’t do. Even right-wing columnist William Safire denounced the prosecutors’ tactics in The New York Times, commenting “It is one thing to give a cooperative witness a break, entirely another to threaten to let a defendant rot in the slammer until he or she tells the story the prosecution wants.” Well, she killed herself instead. What a shame.
Thanks to Nancy Wilson and Eugene McDaniels for blessing us with “Tree Of Life,” and may the both of them and Bobbie Arnstein rest in peace.
#soul #NancyWilson #EugeneMcDaniels #BobbieArnstein