Shirlette Ammons
Shirlette Ammons is a musician, songwriter, producer (music, TV, film), poet, and, according to music journalist Grayson Currin, an all-around “Black queer Southern truth teller.” Ammons’ latest album Spectacles, co-produced with Phil Cook, is an 11-track examination of the duality between being objectified by the proverbial, patriarchal, white gaze and cultivating attention when rocking stages. Spectacles, named one of the best records of the year by NPR’s “Sound Opinions,” is a poignant expression of her own multitudes (here as songwriter, MC, bassist, producer & poet) rendered by a modern wellspring of Black Southern brilliance and her wider creative community, featuring contributions from a broad range of musicians, filmmakers and writers. (Please see Ammons’ website About page for a more complete version of this bio.)
Ammons’ 2013 album, Twilight for Gladys Bentley, was inspired by the legacy of Gladys Bentley, a queer 1920s blues performer from Harlem. In a 2022 interview with Emily Jaeger for the website Cardinal & Pine, Ammons has said that discovering Bentley was a “game-changer,” providing encouragement to explore and embrace her own queer identity in her music and performances.
Bio updated October 2024
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