LilyWilde.com
Title
The Official Lily Wilde Website
Description
01:06, 10 November 2013 (UTC)Known as one of the West Coast's most respected rhythm & blues singers, Lily Wilde began life surrounded by music and art. Her mother Joyce's favourite story is that of a little Lily adding a fifth harmony while singing along to her parent's Hi-Lo's records back in Toronto, where she was born and spent the first five years of her life. Wilde's father, Calvin Jackson, was a world-renowned pianist, composer and arranger with a career that began in the thirties and continued until his death in 1985 while working on arrangements for a 31 piece concert jazz orchestra. The Julliard graduate started at MGM studios as an assistant musical director and went on to score innumerable movies and musicals such as "Ziegfeld Follies", "Anchors Away", "The Asphalt Jungle", "Meet Me in St. Louis" and much later "Viva, Las Vegas". Jackson received an Academy Award nomination in '64 for the musical scoring of "The Unsinkable Molly Brown". Lily's favourite pastime was to lay under her father's concert grand while he was composing. He performed and recorded with the Stan Kenton Orchestra, the Calvin Jackson Trio (the fabulous Leroy Vinnegar was his bass player for years) and many other legendary musicians of the day. He also worked with a veritable "who's who" of talent including Duke Ellington, Harry James, Lucille Ball, Errol Garner, Lionel Hampton, Chico Hamilton, Bobby Troup and Julie London, Herschel Bernardi, Jimmy Durante, Theodore Bikel, Johnny Otis and many others. Jackson also recorded several albums of his own on the Colombia and Verve Labels. Growing up in this creative atmosphere was in no way lost on a young Lily.
01:06, 10 November 2013 (UTC)Lily struck out on her own at the age of 15 and turned pro at 17 when she joined a rock band in Venice, California, playing local music clubs. Not long after, during a trip to New York to work on an album, she met Stevie Wonder at Electric Ladyland studios and quickly became a member of "Wonderlove," his backup vocal group, touring and appearing on the landmark album "Music of My Mind." She spent most of her 20's as a professional fashion model while doing session work, local and national radio jingles, and singing back-up vocals for many name artists including Ricky Lee Jones, Mexican Top 40 artists Los Freddys and Los Bukis, and lead vocals with famed saxophonist Lee Allen. Fed up with the deterioration of her once beloved Hollywood and the "pay to play" mentality of that time, she headed for Sun Valley, Idaho where she fronted a popular local band for a few years.
01:06, 10 November 2013 (UTC)Lily then relocated to Seattle, where she became a mainstay of the rhythm & blues scene. She spent three years as a member of the Northwest's legendary group "Junior Cadillac", touring Russia with the band along with a number of goodwill emissaries including Ambassador to the UN Andrew Young and Seattle's Mayor Charlie Royer in 1989. In addition to fronting her own bands, Lily would occasionally perform with the some of the most highly regarded musicians and ensembles that the Northwest had to offer like Buddy Cattlett and Floyd Standifer. She was also a favourite pick to sing the National Anthem at Seattle Mariners games. On one notable occasion she led a few select members from the cast of the only professional stage production of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (in which Lily held a major role) in her own four part vocal arrangement of said Anthem. In 1991 the Washington Blues Society named Lily "Entertainer of the Year".
