Working for the Amp has its rewards and I am glad to share this one with you. Jane Pearl and I have been giving each other a hard way to go for years. Don’t get the wrong idea! We are good friends. We have always had so much fun teasing each other — it is just how we relate. After this interview I realized I had never sat and had a serious conversation with this wonderful charismatic woman that I have known and loved for so long. I feel that I am as much the beneficiary here as you are, and now that I know her a little better I love her even more! What’s this? B.M.P. is in love with Jane Pearl! Of course I am. Everybody that meets Jane loves her. Do you know why? Because she is Absolutely Jane!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of all the people I know, I know of none more true to themselves than Jane Pearl. She is who she is! No protection, no pretense! It doesn’t matter if she is performing for a delinquent or a diplomat, she is 100% Jane, full blown, ever ready, and as charming as a Southern Belle greeting all the dignitaries, making sure each one is recognized and made to feel right at home.

That’s how her fans feel, so much at ease they could be dancing in their living room. She’s right there with you, one on one, and when she starts to sing something spontaneous comes soaring out of her and it just sucks you in like a tractor beam from the Starship Enterprise.

Jane is without a doubt the most original personality this town has ever produced. She is also the area’s most widely accepted entertainer. It has been my good fortune to be around people from all walks of life and one thing I can convey without any fear of inaccuracy is that I have never met anyone who does not like Jane. From the guttermost to the uppermost! From the youngest to the oldest! I have heard the college crowd rave about how they could not wait to see the Fender Benders {for which Jane Pearl and Willie Smith are the lead singers}. One night when I was at Kevin Welch’s house {a well known singer/songwriter in Nashville} I told Kevin that I was working with Jane. Kevin had seen Jane and Jonell Mosser perform together in Nashville. His immediate reaction was to ask why Jane was not playing Nashville more. He went on to say how great a singer and performer she is and that several of his buddies had wondered why she wasn’t doing shows on her own in Nashville. I have also witnessed the same reaction at the good old boy bars, and I have been to social events and heard a Kentucky Senator sing the same praises of our precious Lady Jane.

No matter what she sings, she does it with all her soul. Sending you to a place of astonishment while she works her magic. Jane is just too cool! It isn’t just her voice that is so enigmatic, it is also the way she shakes her tambourine to the tempo of a hypnotic gypsy (and she sometimes dresses as if she just took a leave of absence from the caravan).The sparkle of her art nouveau eyes, her renaissance hair, and that smile of contentment all bear witness of a woman who just fell in love. Obviously there is a reason for this public display of affection — that being.she did! Every time she walks on the stage she falls in love with the audience and with each song she performs. Jane told me, “I love singing anywhere, I don’t get nervous, I don’t care, I just love singing with anybody. Anybody that wants me to sing with them, I want to sing with them too. My concept of music is I’m having a good time. That’s actually singing for me, that’s it, it’s working! I’m doing it for that music fix! That 3 or 4 minutes of time or however long that song is, to me is living, that’s fun.”

It was somewhere around the age of 8 or 9 that she realized this longing in her soul for that thing she calls “living.” Jane and her sister used to put on garage shows in their neighborhood. Jane would sing while her sister danced and they would do mime shows or whatever the kids wanted. There was no admission charge, but they did sell popcorn for 15 cents to cover expenses. Dressing up like Aretha Franklin & Diana Ross & the Supremes didn’t come cheap, you know. Growing up in the suburbs in the baby boom generation provided lots of kids in the area to entertain. Our precious Pearl had her vaudeville start right here in Bowling Green.

Jane gets her artistic talent from both sides of her family. Her father is an artist; he used to own Rhodes Silk Screening and put out those shirts in the 60’s that said “Don’t mess with me I’m having a bad day.” Her grandfather on her mother’s side was a traveling musician and a swing piano player. Her mother’s brother studied at the Boston Conservatory, he also played Carnegie Hall and he played at Woodstock. Jane also has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Western Kentucky University. Although we all know her as a singer, Jane worked for the Russell Miller Theater at Western designing costumes. She started out as the shop manager and then was promoted to the position of “costume mistress.” She did this for four years. “I couldn’t sing enough” Jane said, “So I had to quit.” She now does free lance work as a costume designer for the Phoenix Theater, Balloon-A-Gram or anyone who needs her ingenious artistic expertise.

The cover story for the Amplifier in June was on Doc Livingston. At the end of that story I pointed out that Doc had influenced almost every musician in this town, and once again Doc has played a part in another one of B.G.’s prized personalities. Jane started her professional career in Bowling Green when Doc asked her to sing “Bill Bailey” and a Sophie Tucker song at the Golden Branding Iron. Needless to say, she was an immediate success.

Kenny Smith {now known as Kenny Lee} was also working with Doc at the time. Kenny saw how well Jane worked the crowd and how great a singer she was, so he asked Jane to sing with a band he had on the side. Later when Kenny opened Picasso’s he asked Jane to sing with him in the house band. Many of you probably remember the days when Jane and Jonell Mosser sang together at Picasso’s. Kenny was on guitar, Byron House on bass, and Jeff Jones on drums. Jane sang at Picasso’s for 5 or 6 years. When she left Picasso’s she started working with Clayton Payne. “This is one of the best things that ever happened to me” replied Jane. “The music wasn’t loud, so I had to really polish my voice.” At Picasso’s Jane mostly sang rock and R&B, but working with Clayton allowed her to add folk songs along with the 40’s torch songs to her repertoire. She sang with Clayton another 5 or 6 years.

around 8 or 9 years ago she started sitting in with the Ernie Small Blues Band. The 6 member band has Ben Lindsey on drums, Eddie Mills on bass, Ernie Raymer on keyboards, Jeffery Mollyhorn on sax, Kevin Briley on trumpet, Ernie on guitar, and Jane on vocals. They play mostly blues and swing. Ernie said, “She started out singing Stormy Monday, then she started singing back up on some of my songs and soon she was a regular part of the show.” “I mostly sing and lead the band, but Jane tells jokes and carries the crowd like nobody else I know. She is really missed when she is not there.” Ernie said he was amazed at how she jumped right in on the song La Bamba. “She does not know Spanish, yet she had the song down in minutes.” “She loves to give me a hard time,” Ernie said, “When we are doing the song Just Like A Woman, Jane argues with me through the whole thing. People just love it.”

You might have noticed while reading this, Jane gets around, “musically speaking.” Jane’s versatility is as notable as her personality. She started out doing 40’s torch songs, went to R&B and rock, to folk, and then to blues. “Luckily my background comes from every kind of music you can imagine. I started out loving the Supremes. I wore Love Child out, I had to buy a second copy cause I wore the album out. To me that was it, that was number one! But you know I came from Ragtime and swing so I love any of that TexMex, and all of that Swing stuff. I love the Blues cause my granddaddy did Ragtime and Swing but that’s basically Black stuff so I tend to go toward Black music. I just like Black music best. It says more for me and it means more for me. But now, I do love the 40’s Torch songs. I just like singing! Anything anybody wants-Andrews Sisters, Lennon Sisters, to Rock and Roll to Blues and Jazz to anything in between. I love Aretha, Ella Fitzgerald, Ethel Merman, Kate Smith, Patti LaBelle, etc. Our generation was very lucky, we were exposed to all kinds of music. The Doobie Brothers to KC and the Sunshine Band, we got it all and I feel very lucky to be a part of that.”

Blue Pearl is another band Jane has. She does smaller gigs with this band. It consists of Todd Coop on bass, Brad Masden on guitar, Chris Hardesty on drums, and Jane singing.

The band that has bought Jane so much attention in the past years is “The Fender Benders.” This band consists of J.C. Coker on keyboards, Todd Coop on bass, “Bad” Brad Masden on guitar, Robert Phillips on sax, and the other lead singer, whose solos and duets with Jane have captivated the heart of Bowling Green, is Willie Smith. The band rotates drummers, using mostly Chris Hardesty and Fenner Castner. Her introduction to the Fender Benders came about pretty much the same as her other gigs. She sat in with them a few times and the guys in the band knew it was magic! J.C. said, “The band needed personality, I knew the music could make it on its own, but it did not have a personality.” Brad said, “As soon as I heard her I said to one of the guys, we’ve got to get her!” It seems most everybody in the band unilaterally agreed to ask her to join at the same time. “Bad” Brad spoke of Jane’s singing as if it mystified him as much as it does everyone, “Jane is one on one, like she’s entertaining you and you alone. Puts a spell on them or something!” Jane has taken such songs as Dreams to Remember, Chain of Fools, and Have My Husband and made signature songs out of them. If she were to do a gig without them, and a few others, there might be a riot. But I doubt it, knowing Jane the way I do. She’d just say, “Normally I’d do that tonight, but I’m doing this instead!” And that would pretty much be the end of it, because people love Jane cause she’s real. That’s what we’ve come to expect of her.

You see somewhere along the way Jane figured out the same thing Ricky Nelson did. In Nelson’s song Garden Party he stated, “you can’t please everyone so you got to please yourself” A phrase that was passed about in the 60’s was “Don’t be plastic Man.” We can all tell when we are being put on, and it turns us off faster than a cop catching us in the back seat while we’re busy making time. As I stated in the beginning, she is Absolutely Jane. She has learned that when she is happy it shows and people dig it! Jane said it best, “The only reason I don’t care if they like it or don’t like it is, I guess I’m selfish. I like it cause I’m having fun. I want everybody to have fun with me, but if you’re not having fun and I’m having fun then you don’t like me. I’m doing it for the good times. I’ll sing if there’s two people there or if there’s 10,000 people there, I don’t care — I’m having fun. The reason most people have fun with me is I’m having fun! It’s a gift, it’s definitely a gift to me, and I appreciate it. It’s not like I’m sitting here thinking I don’t need anybody. Well sure, there’s nothing more fun then to sing in front of people. But if it’s only one person that’s fine with me cause he’s gonna have fun with me too. I enjoy singing, I like it, I LIKE IT A LOT! It feels good, its like everybody goes toward what feels good. If you like coffee, [you drink coffee]. It’s just like music, if I like music I’m going to go toward it.”

I asked Jane what she thought of the music scene in Bowling Green today. She said “It’s back with a vengeance!” In the old days there were so many places to play — The Caribou, Knight’s Inn, Manhattan Towers, Three Brothers, The Orange Bar, The Brass A, etc. Then for years there were just two places. Now there are Vic’s, O’Pawleys Pub, Baker Street Cafe, Industry Violations, O’Charleys, Gary’s, Becky’s Place, etc. (By the way, that list just keeps growing — check the Amp for places like Fort Rock, Miss Linda’s Place, Barnes and Noble, etc.)

Reflecting on the past and the present, she replied, “I never wanted a record deal, my goal in life is to get a European tour.” Well, Jane, I’d say just keep being your wonderful self. As my old friend Mick said, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you need.” I don’t know if you’ll get what you want, but you’ve helped the rest of us get what we need. Those times when we’ve been feeling down and needed to have some fun and forget our troubles for a while, you were there! When it seemed as if the whole world was a put on and we needed someone who was for real, you were there! When we felt everyone was looking down on us and we needed someone on stage to make us feel like we were in the limelight, you were there! When we looked around and saw everyone rushing to their jobs and griping all the way and it seemed no one did anything just for the love of it anymore, you were there!

How did you do this? By knowing where your values should be. Jane told me, “I value my musician friends, I value all my friends. My musician friends are like a club, and once you’re in, there’s no getting out.” Also Jane has had the insight to be true to herself. Proving once again that the more things change the more they stay the same. Shakespeare summed it up a long time ago, “To thine own self be true and it shall follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man!”

Mitchell Plumlee is a writer and musician. His blog can be found at www.blindbutnowisee.blogspot.com