Wilma Reading
On Fire
Album · Pop · 1972
Cairns-born singer Wilma Reading got her unintentional break while casually singing at a jazz club in Brisbane, where she’d visited in 1959 to play women’s softball at a state level. By the following year, she was releasing her own modest versions of popular tunes of the day. Born of mixed Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, Scottish and Afghan ancestry, Reading relocated to New York at a time when Indigenous people were not yet considered Australian citizens or allowed to vote. There she sang live, recorded and toured with the likes of Duke Ellington and later became the first Australian guest on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show.
Her debut album didn’t come until 1972’s On Fire, a grand showcase of her soaring three-octave vocal range that feels a world away from the studied politeness of her earliest recordings. Reading’s opening take on Donna Hightower’s “If You Hold My Hand” is even more melodramatic than the original, courting an outsized horn fanfare that follows her across the album. She reinterprets Carole King’s “I Feel the Earth Move” as a Shirley Bassey-style soul potboiler and brings a burning theatrical presence to the adaptation of Jacques Brel’s “If You Go Away”. Reading belts out these songs as if fronting a stage musical—something she did on London’s West End—and puts an almost breathless level of passion into her phrasing. At the same time, she also drops down to much softer and subtler levels for more jazz-attuned readings of other songs. Eventually returning to her hometown in Queensland, Reading continued performing and mingling the passion of soul with the finesse of jazz, more than 50 years after her career began.
Her debut album didn’t come until 1972’s On Fire, a grand showcase of her soaring three-octave vocal range that feels a world away from the studied politeness of her earliest recordings. Reading’s opening take on Donna Hightower’s “If You Hold My Hand” is even more melodramatic than the original, courting an outsized horn fanfare that follows her across the album. She reinterprets Carole King’s “I Feel the Earth Move” as a Shirley Bassey-style soul potboiler and brings a burning theatrical presence to the adaptation of Jacques Brel’s “If You Go Away”. Reading belts out these songs as if fronting a stage musical—something she did on London’s West End—and puts an almost breathless level of passion into her phrasing. At the same time, she also drops down to much softer and subtler levels for more jazz-attuned readings of other songs. Eventually returning to her hometown in Queensland, Reading continued performing and mingling the passion of soul with the finesse of jazz, more than 50 years after her career began.
On Fire
Wilma Reading
Cairns-born singer Wilma Reading got her unintentional break while casually singing at a jazz club in Brisbane, where she’d visited in 1959 to play women’s softball at a state level. By the following year, she was releasing her own modest versions of popular tunes of the day. Born of mixed Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, Scottish and Afghan ancestry, Reading relocated to New York at a time when Indigenous people were not yet considered Australian citizens or allowed to vote. There she sang live, recorded and toured with the likes of Duke Ellington and later became the first Australian guest on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show.
Her debut album didn’t come until 1972’s On Fire, a grand showcase of her soaring three-octave vocal range that feels a world away from the studied politeness of her earliest recordings. Reading’s opening take on Donna Hightower’s “If You Hold My Hand” is even more melodramatic than the original, courting an outsized horn fanfare that follows her across the album. She reinterprets Carole King’s “I Feel the Earth Move” as a Shirley Bassey-style soul potboiler and brings a burning theatrical presence to the adaptation of Jacques Brel’s “If You Go Away”. Reading belts out these songs as if fronting a stage musical—something she did on London’s West End—and puts an almost breathless level of passion into her phrasing. At the same time, she also drops down to much softer and subtler levels for more jazz-attuned readings of other songs. Eventually returning to her hometown in Queensland, Reading continued performing and mingling the passion of soul with the finesse of jazz, more than 50 years after her career began.
Her debut album didn’t come until 1972’s On Fire, a grand showcase of her soaring three-octave vocal range that feels a world away from the studied politeness of her earliest recordings. Reading’s opening take on Donna Hightower’s “If You Hold My Hand” is even more melodramatic than the original, courting an outsized horn fanfare that follows her across the album. She reinterprets Carole King’s “I Feel the Earth Move” as a Shirley Bassey-style soul potboiler and brings a burning theatrical presence to the adaptation of Jacques Brel’s “If You Go Away”. Reading belts out these songs as if fronting a stage musical—something she did on London’s West End—and puts an almost breathless level of passion into her phrasing. At the same time, she also drops down to much softer and subtler levels for more jazz-attuned readings of other songs. Eventually returning to her hometown in Queensland, Reading continued performing and mingling the passion of soul with the finesse of jazz, more than 50 years after her career began.
