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Gail Wynters

Gail Wynters - Biography

Nancy Gail Shivel first found her voice in her father’s Nazarene church in Ashland, Kentucky, belting out some impromptu blues one morning in the middle of Sunday services. The rest of the family were up front performing when the youngest, all of 18 months, decided it was time to join the family chorus. Later, when the family toured churches and singing conventions throughout the South, they were dubbed, the Shivel Family Singers with Gail - The Little Girl with the Built-in Speakers. Well known in the rural south, they toured in tent gospel shows, sang on the radio, and had a huge following in Kentucky, Tennessee and Huntington, West Virginia, just across the bridge from Ashland. Gail’s father, who sang bass with the family group, also sang on the radio with his seven brothers. A man of good taste, he loved singers and jazz music, and brought home records of Billie Holiday, Art Tatum and Fats Waller and what later became a major influence, The Golden Gate Quartet. She was wanted to sing with every band on campus at Kentucky University. The rock band wanted her, the rhythm and blues group and the jazz band featured her, and soon she became a major star in Lexington, regularly appearing at small jazz rooms and big country clubs. In the 50s, Stan Kenton wanted to take the teenage Gail on the road with his band. Her father refused to let her go. Nancy Gail was too young. Cal Collins, a well-known guitar player from Cincinnati heard Gail sing, hired her for his group, and began teaching her jazz standards. She explored Ellington, Gershwin, Arlen, Porter, Berlin and the great American song masters, and soon had a spreading reputation and steady work in Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia, as well as Kentucky. Word of her talent reached Nashville. Capitol signed her and tried to make her into another Brenda Lee. The six sides they produced were soon forgotten. Wesley Rose offered her a one-album contract on his own Hickory label, and produced Nancy Gail Shivel as if she were a cross between a southern Barbra Streisand and a white Gladys Knight. He called the album ‘A Girl For All Seasons,’ and renamed his young protege Gail Wynters. Married and the mother of two young boys, Gail became a housewife and occasional performer, working gigs in the region. She opened for and toured with Roy Orbison in a series of concerts that included a young Joe Cocker.

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Album Review

Gail Wynters: My Shining Hour

Read "My Shining Hour" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Where to Begin?. In late 1997, Naxos, the innovative budget classical label, branched out into the jazz marketplace with the release of six compact discs. In keeping with their classical recording practice, Naxos Jazz approached lesser exposed working jazz musicians and studio players to record as leaders and sidemen. Twenty-seven releases later, the talent springs from the typical venues (NYC) to atypical (New Zealand) locales. The brands of jazz are all over the map: Bebop, Hard Bop, Post Bop, and ...

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New month, new edition of Local Music Monday. This week DeBraun profiles Gail Wynters.

Gail Wynters is a native of Ashland, Kentucky who has made Lexington her home. Her father was a pastor and she grew up around music in church. Wynters says, singing is what she’s wanted to do her entire life. “As long as I’ve had a memory I’ve been singing because I was born into a family of singers, the story goes, I was 18 months, a lady was holding me in the audience, my family was on the platform singing and I kept wiggling trying to get free and her hold kind of loosens enough for me to make my escape, climbed up on the platform, started singing every song they were singing even though, I knew all the melodies, but I’d make up those words, so I started scatting at a young age, but from that time on pretty much I was singing with my family.” She moved from Kentucky to New York and has had a career full of experiences. She was signed to the Hickory record label and recorded with artists like Michael Brecker, Dr. John, Ron Carter and Richie Havens. Wynters says, no matter what she sings, it always comes from the heart.

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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

My Shining Hour

Not On Label (Gail Becker Self-release)
1998

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