R&B singer Lalah Hathaway honors family legacy

Grammy Award winning singer Lalah Hathaway, with special guest singer Jarrod Lawson, is making a stop in Macon on Friday night as part of a three-city Georgia tour.

It’s the start of what she calls, “a very promising fall.”

Performing at the City Auditorium, the concert will feature music from Hathaway’s album “Lalah Hathaway Live,” an ode to her legendary father, Donny Hathaway. She plans to perform her 2016 Best Traditional R&B Grammy-winning song, “Little Ghetto Boy.”

“This album is a dream fulfilled! It means everything to me to have built this record with and for the fans. ... I cannot wait to take this show on the road,” Hathaway said in a recent interview. “ ‘Little Ghetto Boy’ is a record that I grew up listening to, largely the live version. It’s one of the songs that I really associate with (my father’s album) ‘Donny Hathaway Live.’ To have the opportunity to record the song for this album I’ve been dreaming of doing, in the same room where Donny Hathaway recorded his live record, is a full circle dream come true for me.”

Hathaway recorded her album live at the historic Troubadour Theater in Los Angeles, which was the same place her father recorded half of his influential 1972 album “Donny Hathaway Live.”

“Anytime people would ask, ‘Do you feel any pressure being the daughter of Donny Hathaway?’ my answer was no. There is only one me and there is only one him. I never have to fill those shoes, I only have to stand in my own,” she said. “In a big way, (this) record represents a defining moment for me. I describe it as opening a door and pulling another one closed. It became a marker, a milestone. No more hiding from the pressure I sometimes feel, the fear of vulnerability, of showing myself to people, or facing the comparisons with my father and all the questions.”

Hathaway said winning the Grammy this year was “a very surreal moment.”

“It was exciting to win a Grammy Award,” Hathaway said. “They are the icing on an already really great cake because they denote that your peers and colleagues really appreciate and respect you.”

Aside from the accolades, for Hathaway, the joy of performing lies in the audience response.

“I really enjoy the feedback from the audience. And I really enjoy the conversation that we, as a room, are having — the musicians and the listeners,” she said.

Along that line, Hathaway said she is interested in hearing and communicating with her fans.

“I really love communicating with the fans everywhere! Insta, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter all @lalahhathaway,” she said, inviting fans to contact her.

This story was originally published September 29, 2016 at 9:00 PM with the headline "R&B singer Lalah Hathaway honors family legacy."