By 1970, Nancy Wilson was at the top of her profession. Over forty musicians – the crème de crème of Hollywood – played on her album ‘Now I’m a woman’. As Nancy arrived for her recording session, she announced she had just come from a steam bath and felt great. She then put on her earphones, “her bell-bottomed, bra-less being swayed to the beat,” as the orchestra began.
Nancy, at 33, had sang her way into America’s heart and its mainstream. The average middle class suburbanite who drove an Oldsmobile now had Nancy Wilson on their turntable, alongside Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis and Herb Alpert. Her early career hit ‘How Glad I Am’ had vaulted her to the pop-jazz stratosphere.
She was “jazz-cool, elegant, sophisticated and smart with a backbone of pure steel hidden beneath her designer gowns,” according to jazztimes.com in 2024. Her signature tune was ‘Guess who I saw today.’
Nancy Wilson grew up in Columbus, Ohio. She was born in Chillicothe on February 20, 1937. Her father Odell worked for an iron foundry and decided to move the family when she was two. Nancy and her family lived on Columbus’ west side where she attended Columbus West High School.
She began singing in church choirs at a young age. She won a tv talent contest and began singing at the Club Regal with pianist Bobby Shaw. She didn’t even have her driver’s license yet. Her 14-year-old brother accompanied her, playing bodyguard, as required by dad.
Nancy worked all the clubs on the east and north side of Columbus until she graduated from West in 1954. She toured with the Rusty Bryant Band throughout the Midwest for a couple of years.
Then, in 1959, at the prompting of saxophonist Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley, she decided to move to New York. She was gonna give it six months.
Nancy got a day job and sang at night. Her roommate at the time sang at a place in the Bronx called the ‘Blue Morocco’. Irene Reid was the house singer. Nancy sang a song or two with the band a few times.
Then, within a month, she got a call to fill in for Irene who had broken her leg. She got the gig. Nancy began singing there four nights a week. It was a step up. She met Nat King Cole in the first week and ran into Cannon again. His manager John Levy came to see her shortly thereafter. He signed her the next day.
Levy sent her recordings to producer David Cavenaugh whose response was “don’t let anybody else hear them.” Nancy signed with the relatively new Capitol Records and, in December 1959, found herself in Hollywood at their famed recording studio.
And just like that, America had a new sweetheart.
Nancy was so hot, the label released five of her albums over the next two years. She would stay with Capitol Records for nearly two decades, recording three dozen records.
In 1960, she met and quickly married drummer Kenny Davis. Their son Kacy was born a couple of years later.
Her R&B collaboration with Cannonball Adderley ‘Save your love for me’ propelled her to national prominence. Nancy would release eleven songs between 1963 and 1971 that cracked the Top 100 and would be second in record sales while at Capitol to only the Beatles, surpassing Frank Sinatra, the Beach Boys and Nat King Cole.
She won her first Grammy in 1964, with ‘How Glad I Am’. Nancy got her own TV show on NBC, “The Nancy Wilson Show’ in 1967 and won an Emmy.
Nancy performed at the Lincoln Theater in Columbus in the 1960s as did other notables including James Brown, Miles Davis, and Etta James. In 1970, she divorced Kenny Davis. Four years later she married Wiley Burton, an ordained preacher.
After Capitol, Nancy signed with Sony Records out of Japan in the 1980s. “They kept saying they didn’t know how to market me, and I’d say, ‘Come on, people, let’s just go in and do a damn R&B tune,” said Nancy at the time. “I’m not taking my clothes off and I’m not shakin’ my butt.”
New York Times called her a forerunner of the modern ‘female empowerment singer’. Though Nancy admittedly did not like the business side of music, she soon took control of her career, blazing her own trail.
“I remember once realizing that I knew precisely where I’d be for the next two years and told (her manager), ‘This is not what I came out here to do. Back off, because I cannot live like this.”
Nancy collaborated with Ramsey Lewis in 1984 with the beautiful duet ‘The two of us’; in 1989 ‘Nancy Wilson in concert’ was a tv special; Nancy was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991; she hosted ‘Forever Ella’ on the A&E network in 1999, honoring Ella Fitzgerald; she hosted NPR’s ‘Jazz Profiles’ from 1996 to 2005 and for her seventieth birthday, Arsenio Hall hosted an all-star extravaganza celebration.
Nancy’s husband Wiley died in 2008.
She performed her last show – at Ohio University – on September 10, 2011. Afterward she announced, “I’m not going to be doing it anymore, and what better place to end it than where I started – in Ohio.”
In her career, Nancy recorded seventy albums and won three Grammy Awards. She was honored with a tile on the Lincoln Theatre’s Walk of Fame in Columbus in 2015.
Nancy Wilson died on December 13, 2018, in Pioneertown, Calif. She was 81.
Columbus native Michael Feinstein and Nancy sang together at least once. Feinstein recalled Nancy as “one of the great voices of any generation.” Working with her “was like walking a tightrope, because she didn’t want to rehearse. She liked to do it in the moment, which is why she is a legend.”
Sources: Columbus Unforgettables, edited by Robert Thomas (1984); Nancy Wilson, 2004 NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships, National Endowment for the Arts interview, Jan 11, 2007; The Haygoods of Columbus by Wil Haygood (1997); A Historical Guide to old Columbus by Bob Hunter (2012); The Vault of Soul: Nancy Wilson by Isabella Kohn, wers.org, Feb 15, 2024; WCSU FM Honors Jazz Singer Nancy Wilson during Women’s History Month, cityofxenia.org, excerpted from NPR News, Dec 14, 2018; Nancy Wilson: the baby grows up by Barbara Gardner, downbeat.com, Nov 19, 1964; 10 Facts about Jazz Singer Nancy Wilson by Shannon Callahan, historyhit.com, April 12, 2022; 101 things you didn’t know about Columbus Ohio by Horace Martin Woodhouse, 2010; Nancy Wilson, JazzWax.com, December 14, 2018; thehistorymakers.org, Nancy Wilson, Nov 15, 2007; Nancy Wilson: ‘A musician like no other’ by Alissa Paolella, April 24, 2023, ww.centralstate.edu; www.wikapedia.com. The Gershwins & Me by Michael Feinstein, 2012; ‘The most impactful places to visit in Columbus during Black History Month’ by Rita Fuller-Yates, Jan 1, 2025, www.experiencecolumbus.com; Nancy Wilson, Walk of Fame, www.lincolntheatrecolumbus.com; Columbus unveils Nancy Wilson Way, City of Columbus, www.youtube.com; Iconic Nancy Wilson Songs, Jan 26, 2026, www.jazzfuel.com; Nancy Wilson: How glad we are for the grace of… by Christopher Loudon, Aug 24, 2024, www.jazztimes.com; Opening paragraph taken from the back album cover of ‘Now I’m A woman’, 1970, Capitol Records; Featured picture is courtesy of the Columbus Historical Society, as part of the Arnett Howard Collection and courtesy of the Columbus Metropolitan Library.