Freda Payne To Pay Tribute To Ella Fitzgerald At Bucks Playhouse

NEW HOPE, PA — At the end of August, one legend will honor another when Freda Payne brings her acclaimed concert "A Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald" to the Bucks County Playhouse.

Payne, an R&B and jazz vocalist known best for her chart-topping song "Band of Gold," will deliver legendary Fitzgerald performances including “A Tisket, A-Tasket,” “Sweet Georgia Brown,” “It Don’t Mean A Thing,” and “Mack the Knife,” among other classics.

“Even today not many jazz singers can deliver scat improvisations with the velocity and timbral control that Fitzgerald wielded while tossing off passages that suggested another language passing through her, the jazz equivalent of speaking in tongues," The New York Times wrote, reviewing an early performance. "Ms. Payne can not only do it, but the voice she adopts for the task is strongly reminiscent of Fitzgerald’s.”

Payne is fresh off the release of a five-song EP, "Let There Be Love," in which she duets with legends Johnny Mathis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kurt Elling and Kenny Lattimore. In addition to her impressive singing career, Payne was also an actress in musicals and film and the host of a TV talk show. Her sister, Scherrie Payne, used to sing with The Supremes.

In 1956, while at Hutchins Middle School in Detroit, Michigan, Payne appeared on the nationally-televised Ted Mack’s "The Original Amateur Hour"; singing jingles, she was featured on WJR Radio’s "Make Way for Youth," in addition to many other local television and radio shows.

\When she graduated from high school, Payne began touring with Pearl Bailey’s musical review and sang with the Duke Ellington Band. Her first album was "After the Lights Go Down" for ABC’s Impulse Records in 1962.

Moving to New York City in 1963, Payne made appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, The Merv Griffin Show, and The Dick Cavett Show. In 1964, Payne joined the Four Tops, Billy Eckstine, and Nipsey Russell on the Quincy Jones Tour.

Payne's real stardom began when she signed with Invictus Records, a label run by her old Detroit friends Brian Holland, Edward Holland, Jr., and Lamont Dozier (formerly of Motown) in 1969. Payne’s smash single “Band of Gold,” released in 1970, was ranked number 1 in the United Kingdom and number 3 in the United States; it was her first gold record.

Her other hits included “Deeper and Deeper,” “You Brought Me Joy,” and the anti-war, “Bring the Boys Home.”

The Bucks County Playhouse had a summer of theatrical hits, including Candace Bushnell's "Is There Still Sex in the City?" and an ensemble work from the youth company, "Dream Awake."

Tickets to “A Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald” are sold online or by calling the Box Office at (215) 862-2121.

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