Ann Hampton Callaway Gets Personal with Own Songs on New Album, Club Dates

"When the pandemic came along my mind went to, 'I may not have long to live,' and what really matters is telling your own story, what you've learned, telling the truth, and sharing things that feel a little scary. That's what makes life worth living. The merger of art and heart is what connects us," says MAC Award winner, Tony-nominated and out singer/songwriter Ann Hampton Callaway. It was that dread-fueled determination that inspired Callaway to finally release a collection of her own songs entitled "Finding Beauty - Originals, Volume I."

In the liner notes Callaway describes the title song as, "a musical celebration to commemorate finding the love of my life, Kari Strand. It tells some of the story of how we met and how Kari transformed my life. I felt it was an appropriate title for this project as finding beauty is a daily throughline in my life – seeking to recognize truth and the many forms of beauty that life surprises us with every day, and looking for the silver linings in all the challenges we face."

As a singer, Callaway has always been known as a champion of the Great American Songbook, amassing 17 MAC Awards and filling stylish boîtes from coast to coast and across oceans, sometimes literally, as the headlining entertainer on jazz cruises or RSVP cruises on the QM2.

Callaway is also a prolific songwriter, probably best known for penning the theme song to the television sitcom, "The Nanny." Many of her recordings contain at least one original composition, which she glibly refers to as "Ann-dards." In her concerts, to audience delight, she employs one of her party tricks where she composes and performs a song on the spot using words thrown out to her by the audience. One of her songs, "At the Same Time," an anthem for world peace, has even gone platinum. Written in the hopes that Barbra Streisand might one day record it, Streisand indeed picked it up and recorded it on her platinum-selling album "Higher Ground."

But until now, Callaway hadn't recorded an album exclusively of her own songs. "Finding Beauty" is Callaway's answer to that. Bobby Patrick of BroadwayWorld.com describes "Finding Beauty" as "the result of a lot of mining of creative diamonds using her pen and piano, and spotlights moments both rough and smooth in the lives of anyone with a heart."

Using the 2023 release of this project to launch a tour, Callaway is bringing her show "Finding Beauty" to Jimmy's Jazz & Blues Club in Portsmouth, NH on Wednesday, May 1, then to Scullers Jazz Club, Boston on Saturday, May 4, before heading to Florida, Palm Springs, and Las Vegas the rest of May.

Not only is this recording Callaway's first recording exclusively of her own songs, but it is the first time she has relinquished control over producing and arranging, leaving that to her two friends and colleagues, Paul Viapiano and Trey Henry.

Callaway felt that despite all the songs being from one songwriter, there is still a lot of variety. "I am a very eclectic human being," notes Callaway. "When people ask me what my favorite color is, I tell them, 'The rainbow.' When you come to my shows, you get a variety show, and perhaps that's why I've been able to have 'the family that music makes.' I want to write a song with that title someday."

Callaway credits her arrangers, Henry and Viapiano, with giving her collection of songs musical continuity using their sonic style to tease out nuances in Callaway's songs that she didn't know were there.