Gina Coleman is the founder and frontwoman of Misty Blues. The band has been an indelible Berkshire County presence for over 20 years.
“It started out of a Williamstown Theatre Festival performance that I was in. I was cast as a gospel singer for the production of ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ back in ‘99," she told WAMC. "They wanted someone to sing during the transitions of the acts, and so, I was the only African American vocalist in Williamstown at the time. So someone reached out to me, and the main actor, lead actor, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, came to me after the run of the show and said, you know, your voice is perfectly suited for the blues. And he gave me a CD collection called 'Men Are Like Streetcars.' And it's a couple of discs of all female blues singers from the early 20s through the 60s, and it was transformative. And I turned to the band that I was working with at the time, Cole-Connection, and I said, let's change things up. Let's become a blues band. And now, off the top of my head, I said, let's call ourselves Misty Blues. And we have been doing this ever since.”
Misty Blues’ newest single is ‘The Hate,’ featuring vocalist Kat Riggins and guitarist Justin Johnson. It marks a tonal departure for the band.
“I'm generally not too terribly, socially or politically charged in my music. Kat Riggins, on the other hand, is," laughed Coleman. "But this is probably the first song that I wrote not out of just pure creative process and storytelling, but out of just a visceral response.”
“I wrote the song in response to exceptionally hateful message that was left on a YouTube video for a song off of our last album," Coleman continued. "The song was called 'Freight Car.' And I actually wrote that song with my oldest son, Diego. And someone left a comment racially charged comment that basically said that the song would be even better if my kind of people weren't involved in it.”
While Coleman is no stranger to bigotry, it struck a nerve.
“This incident was unique in that this is the first time that I've had that kind of comment made towards myself and my music, linked it to my music," she explained. "And that was the startling part. Because music is so sacred to me, it crossed a different line. And it was- The comment wasn't one that I could relinquish easily because of that connection with the music. It moved me in such a way because it haunted me that someone would do that and link it with my music. And it was the only way for me to traverse the hurt from that statement, was to put it into another music form- And hopefully, to serve as a way to show, maybe, non-marginalized people that this is really pervasive. And this is what people from historically marginalized groups have to deal with even more frequently nowadays.”
Originally intended as a single for the next Misty Blues album, Coleman says she couldn’t wait to release “The Hate.”
“In terms of the arrangement of the song, it's stark, it's stirring," she said. "I think the song could be just as powerful without lyrics. And I really wanted to arrange it in a way that even without words, you're stirred. But the lyrics just came to me, as, in a response to the comment as if I had that person in front of me. You hurt me and you don't even know my name. You have made assumptions about me without having any knowledge about me and what I have done for my family, and my community, my friends, supporters of my music, and it hurt. And I want you to know this. And that's really what's behind 'The Hate.'”
Coleman hopes that her uncommonly pointed composition serves as a reminder.
“I want the audience to know that there are groups of people that we live with that are being targeted for things that they have no control over, and have a better understanding that things that may seem minor to some groups of people are levied on other groups of people in a more pervasive way," she told WAMC. "And so they suffer greatly from these types of occurrences, and to have a better understanding of that, and maybe by highlighting it, it will serve as a vehicle to lessen the occurrences going forward.”
Misty Blues’ 12th studio album is set for release in February.
