Broadway veteran shows her ‘Soul’ at Wichita Symphony Orchestra concert
When Capathia Jenkins returns to the Wichita Symphony Orchestra this weekend with a show called “She’s Got Soul,” it isn’t necessary about soul music.
“When I talk about ‘soul,’ I’m talking about my soul,” she said in a phone interview. “My soul and the things that touch me deeply.”
While the pops concert does have its share of R&B and soul music on the set list – Anita Baker, Chaka Khan, Toni Braxton and Jenkins’ favorite, Gladys Knight – there are also two songs from British songstress Adele, the only act to have two songs featured.
After debating what song to open the show with, Jenkins said, “We had to do ‘Rolling in the Deep,’” she said. “It just so happened she gets two songs.”
Jenkins, who appeared at WSO with a roster of Broadway performers in 2012 and returned a year and a half ago for an Aretha Franklin tribute, said “She’s Got Soul” was a logical successor.
“We felt like we had so much success with the Aretha show,” she said. “My manager and I just started kicking around the idea of a show that was just for me, because Aretha had me and a male singer.”
Lucas Waldin, her conductor on the tour and guest conductor at Century II on Saturday night, helped her compile the music, and ended up commissioning half of the orchestral arrangements.
“Lucas is so good at chasing down songs that are on my wish list and just doing his due diligence,” Jenkins said.
Although some of the music featured may not be classified as soul, Jenkins said, it’s music that has deeply touched her.
“I love soul music so much, and I grew up on soul music,” she said.
For the concert, she asked herself, “What story do I want to tell?
“‘She’s Got Soul’ really turned into this evening of celebrating these songs and these singers, all the while you’re getting to know me,” she said. “I start talking about growing up in Brooklyn and what that was like and how you could hear any of this music on any given night or any given day.”
It premiered in Houston in the fall of 2022 for a three-performance weekend and his been performed in 35 concerts in 12 cities since.
“We really feel like it’s a well-oiled machine,” Jenkins said.
While on the Aretha tour, she said, backup singers were brought in at each town. For “Soul,” three backup singers travel with her. All of the performers have in-ear monitors, she added, so they can move around on stage. Once in each act, the singers get their own turn on center stage.
The concert jumps around the timeline frequently, Jenkins said.
“I’m sort of skipping around with my life story growing up, and then I switch to why I love Gladys Knight – she’s my favorite singer of all time – I tell a little story about that,” she said. “And then all the way back at the end of the show is where I go back to my Gospel roots.”
Jenkins also gives an on-stage appreciation to the singer Sade, as an intro to her self-named group’s 1984 hit “Smooth Operator,” explaining how the Nigerian-born British singer changed Jenkins’ career arc.
“She came on the scene right when I was finishing up high school and I had a trained classical voice for so much of my life,” Jenkins said. “I was a senior in high school, singing arias – Italian, French and German arias – and Sade came along out, and I was like, ‘What is this?’ She was really marching to the beat of her own drum. This was like no other artist I had listened to or fallen in love with.”
Jenkins will also perform her own single, “I Am Strong,” which was released during the pandemic.
The arrangements in “She’s Got Soul” stay loyal to the recordings, Jenkins said.
“I’m always bringing myself to it, but the arrangements we have, although they may be tweaked from the original recordings or put in a key that is more comfortable for me, are for the most part what people know,” she said. “I think that is important when you’re doing these really famous songs, that people sing along, and I invite people to sing along, get up and dance – all of those things. It’s important to stay very close to the original and bring myself, my joy, my vocal abilities, to the table.”
While Jenkins continues to tour “She’s Got Soul” across the country, she also continues to take the Aretha Franklin tribute to symphonies and is working with a collaborator on another symphonic concert, “Icon: The Voices That Changed Music,” which she hopes to premiere next fall.
WICHITA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: ‘SHE’S GOT SOUL’ WITH CAPATHIA JENKINS
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 14
Where: Century II concert hall, 225 W. Douglas
Tickets: $20-$85, with discounts for students, military and seniors, from wichitasymphony.org, by phone at 316-267-7658 or at the symphony box office at Century II
