Jackie Shane (Nashville, Tennessee, May 15, 1940 - February, 2019) was an A… Read Full Bio ↴Jackie Shane (Nashville, Tennessee, May 15, 1940 - February, 2019) was an American rhythm & blues and soul singer, who was most prominent in the local music scene of Toronto, Ontario, Canada in the 1960s. She was a contributor to the Toronto Sound and is best known for the single "Any Other Way", which was a regional Top 10 hit in Toronto in 1962 and a modest national chart hit across Canada in 1967.

Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, in 1960, Shane moved to Montreal, Quebec, where saxophonist "King" Herbert Whitaker invited her along to watch the popular band Frank Motley and his Motley Crew at the Esquire Show Bar. Shane showed up and sat down near the front. When Motley said, "Get that kid up here and let's see what he can do," pianist Curley Bridges invited Shane, then still presenting as a man, onstage for the next set, where she performed songs by Ray Charles and Bobby "Blue" Bland.

She was soon the band's lead vocalist, and relocated to Toronto with them in late 1961. She returned several times to the United States, on tour with the Motley Crew (to Boston, for example, where they recorded), to New York to record, to visit her family and old friends and perform on a TV show in Nashville, or to live and work in Los Angeles.

A fan mythology linked her to Little Richard, including claims that she had been Richard's backing vocalist before moving to Canada or even that she was Richard's cousin, although no verification of either claim has ever been found and no evidence exists that Shane ever made either claim herself. Music critic Carl Wilson has concluded that, while in reality Shane had deep and identifiable roots in the traditions of the Southern US Chitlin' Circuit, the mythology emerged because that scene's traditions were not known to Torontonians in the 1960s, and thus Little Richard was the only antecedent for Shane's style that most of her local fan base could identify.

Throughout her active musical career and for many years thereafter, Shane was written about by nearly all sources as a man who performed in ambiguous clothing that strongly suggested femininity. The few sources that actually sought out her own words on the matter of her own gender identification were more ambiguous, however; she identified herself as male in two early quotes to the Toronto Star, but more often appeared to simply dodge questions about her gender altogether. Her identity as a trans woman was not confirmed on the record by a media outlet until 2017.

She released her first single, a cover of Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What I Want)", in 1962. "I've Really Got the Blues" was the single's B-side. Shortly thereafter, the same label released an alternate version of the single on which "Money" was relegated to the B-side, while a different recording of "I've Really Got the Blues", with a few revised lyrics and the alternate title "Have You Ever Had the Blues?", became the A-side.

She followed up with "Any Other Way" (b/w "Sticks and Stones") later the same year, in the fall of 1962; the song became her biggest chart hit, reaching #2 on Toronto's CHUM Chart in 1962. A cover of a song previously recorded and released by William Bell earlier that year (in the mid- to late summer of 1962), Shane's version (which also charted in 1963) was noted for adding a different spin to the lyric "Tell her that I'm happy/tell her that I'm gay"; while the original lyric intended the word "gay" in its older meaning as a synonym of "happy", Shane played on the word's double meaning, which was not yet in mainstream usage.

The follow-up single to "Any Other Way" was "In My Tenement" b/w "Comin' Down." It received some airplay in upstate New York, but did not chart elsewhere in the US or Canada, and Shane did not record again for several years.
In 1962, Shane was performing at Toronto's Saphire Tavern, specializing in covers of songs by Ray Charles and Bobby Bland. In 1965, she made a television appearance in Nashville on WLAC-TV's Night Train, performing Rufus Thomas' "Walking the Dog".

In 1967, "Any Other Way" was reissued and became a modest hit across Canada, peaking at #68 on the national RPM chart in March. Shane subsequently returned to recording later that year, issuing the single "Stand Up Straight and Tall" b/w "You Are My Sunshine", and the live album Jackie Shane Live. A final single, "Cruel Cruel World" b/w "New Way of Lovin'", was released in 1969.

In addition to her own recordings, Shane also appeared on Motley's album Honkin' at Midnight, performing live versions of some of the singles she had released under her own name.

Shane faded in prominence after 1970-71, with even her own former bandmates losing touch with her; soon after returning to Los Angeles, she turned down an offer to be a part of George Clinton's band Funkadelic. She began caring for her mother, who lived in Los Angeles, before relocating to Nashville around 1996 after the death of her mother.

For a time she was rumoured to have committed suicide or to have been stabbed to death in the 1990s, but she'd retired from music, and moved home to Nashville from Los Angeles. She'd kept in touch with Frank Motley, who put a Toronto record collector in touch with her in the mid 1990s. This news was relayed to a small number of her old musician friends, a couple of whom contacted her. One, Steve Kennedy, discussed with Shane the possibility of organizing and staging a reunion concert, but this never materialized — the next time Kennedy called the same phone number, it had been reassigned to somebody else who had never heard of Shane.

CBC Radio's Inside the Music aired a documentary feature, "I Got Mine: The Story of Jackie Shane", in 2010. At the time, nobody involved in the documentary, the executive producer of which was Steve Kennedy's wife, had been able to determine whether Shane was still alive; but she was subsequently found, still living in Nashville.

Footage of Shane in performance also appeared in Bruce McDonald's 2011 documentary television series Yonge Street: Toronto Rock & Roll Stories.

Jackie Shane Live was reissued as a bootleg in 2011 on Vintage Music as Live at the Saphire Tavern, although the reissue was labelled as being from 1963 (the date of the original live performance) instead of 1967 (the release date of the album). A compilation bootleg of the studio singles and rarities, Soul Singles Classics, was released the same year.

In 2015, the Polaris Music Prize committee shortlisted a new legitimate reissue of the album by OPM, this time correctly called Jackie Shane Live as one of the nominees for the 1960s-1970s component of its inaugural Heritage Award to honour classic Canadian albums. It was shortlisted for the prize again in 2016 and 2017.

In 2017, a group of Toronto writers published the essay anthology Any Other Way: How Toronto Got Queer, a history of LGBT culture in Toronto; in addition to taking its title from Shane's 1962 single, the book includes an essay devoted specifically to Shane.

In the summer of 2017, the reissue label Numero Group announced that they would be releasing a double-LP/CD compilation of Shane's music, Any Other Way, on October 20, 2017. The album marked the first time since her final single in 1969 that Shane was directly involved in the production and release of a reissue of her music. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Historical Album category.

In 2019, Shane granted a broadcast interview to CBC Radio One's Q. The interview was conducted by Elaine Banks, who had been the producer and host of "I Got Mine", and was Shane's first broadcast interview since the end of her performing career. In the interview, she confirmed that she returned home to the United States to take care of her ailing mother, but stated that she regrets not having chosen to bring her mother to Toronto instead.

Discography

Singles
"Money (That's What I Want)" b/w "I've Really Got the Blues" (1962)
"Have You Ever Had the Blues?" b/w "Money (That's What I Want)" (1962)
"Any Other Way" b/w "Sticks and Stones" (1962)
"In My Tenement" b/w "Comin' Down" (1963)
"Stand Up Straight and Tall" b/w "You Are My Sunshine" (1967)
"Cruel Cruel World" b/w "New Way of Lovin'" (1969)

Albums
Jackie Shane Live (Caravan Records, 1967)
Honkin' at Midnight (2000, bootleg, with Frank Motley and his Motley Crew)
Live at the Saphire Tavern (2011, bootleg)
Soul Singles Classics (2011, bootleg)
Jackie Shane Live (2015, reissue)

Compilations
"Slave For You Baby" and "Chickadee" on The Original Blues Sound of Charles Brown & Amos Milburn with Jackie Shane-Bob Marshall & The Crystals (Grand Prix/Pickwick, 1965)
Any Other Way (Numero Group, 2017)

Sticks And Stones
Jackie Shane Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Here you come again
And you say that your my friend
But I know why your here
She wants to know how I feel
Tell her that I am happy
Tell her that I am gay
Tell her I wouldn't have it
Any other way

People have been talking
Since we been apart
And when I pass I hear them whisper, (ha, ha)
There he goes with a broken heart
But when you see my baby
Here is what you say
Tell her I wouldn't have it
Any other way

That's all I got to say my friend
Now we better say good-bye
I think you better go right now
Or you might see me cry
But when you see my baby
This is what you say
Tell her I wouldn't have it
Any other way
No other way
I wouldn't have it baby
No other way

I just won't have it baby
Any other way

Overall Meaning

In Jackie Shane's song "Sticks and Stones," the singer addresses a friend who has come to check on them on behalf of their ex-partner. The singer tells the friend to relay a message to their ex-partner, that they are happy and "gay" (meaning "joyful" rather than "homosexual"). The singer then acknowledges the gossip that has been circulating about their breakup, but declares that they would not have it any other way. The singer asks the friend to deliver the same message to their ex-partner if they should see them.

The song seems to address the experience of being perceived as heartbroken after a breakup, and perhaps the challenge of getting others to understand that one is doing just fine. The lines "People have been talking / Since we been apart / And when I pass I hear them whisper, (ha, ha) / There he goes with a broken heart" suggest that outsiders are assuming the singer is not over the breakup, and perhaps even finding that amusing. The repetition of the line "I wouldn't have it any other way" emphasizes the singer's conviction that they are better off without their ex-partner, even if others don't see it that way.

Overall, the song could be interpreted as a celebration of independence and self-determination in the face of societal pressure to conform to certain relationship norms. The singer is telling their ex-partner, and anyone else who might be interested, that they are not defined by their romantic relationship and are perfectly happy on their own terms.

Line by Line Meaning

Here you come again
You have returned

And you say that your my friend
You claim to be my friend

But I know why your here
I know your true intentions for coming here

She wants to know how I feel
You are here on behalf of someone who wants to know how I am doing emotionally

Tell her that I am happy
Inform her that I am content and satisfied with my life

Tell her that I am gay
Inform her of my homosexuality

Tell her I wouldn't have it
Make sure she understands that I embrace my identity

Any other way
I wouldn't change who I am

People have been talking
There is gossip circulating

Since we been apart
Since our separation

And when I pass I hear them whisper, (ha, ha)
When I walk by, I overhear them snickering mockingly

There he goes with a broken heart
They believe I am heartbroken

But when you see my baby
If you see my lover

Here is what you say
This is what you should tell them

No other way
There is no alternative

That's all I got to say my friend
I have no more to add to this conversation, my friend

Now we better say good-bye
It is time for you to leave

I think you better go right now
I suggest you leave immediately

Or you might see me cry
Otherwise, I may burst into tears

I just won't have it baby
I will not tolerate anything else

Any other way
I refuse to be any different from who I am

Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: DAVID J. BRENNER, DEAN HENNING BACK, TIMOTHY R. HART, TYLER PATRICK CONNOLLY

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

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