Salome Bey CM (October 10, 1933 – August 8, 2020) was an American-born, Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, and actress who, after emigrating to Toronto in 1964, became known as “Canada’s first lady of the blues.” In 2005, she was made an honorary Member of the Order of Canada. In 2022 she was honoured by Canada Post with a commemorative postage stamp for her contributions to Canadian music and theatre.
Salome Bey was born Salome Widerman in Newark, New Jerseyto Andrew and Victoria Wideman. Her father was a devoted student of the African diaspora who, after converting to Islam, changed his family’s surname to Bey. Salome and her eight siblings grew up learning prayers in Arabic and fasting during Ramadan. When she was 14, she and her sisters sneaked out of the house and performed at an “Amateur Night” at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, where they won the night’s contest.
In 1961, the group made its first appearance in Toronto, Ontario, and Bey moved there permanently in 1964. That year, she married Howard Matthews, a restaurateur who owned The Underground Railroad, a restaurant and nightclub that served as a meeting place for the city’s Black community. The couple raised two daughters, Jacintha Tuku and Saidah Baba Talibah, and one son, Marcus Matthews.
Here’s “Stardust” from above album
Bey became a fixture of Canada’s jazz and blues club circuit. She also worked in theater, starring in the 1971 musical Justine, for which she won an Obie Award when it moved to Off Broadway (where it was renamed Love Me, Love My Children). She next appeared on Broadway in leading roles in Dude and Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope and earned a Grammy nomination in 1976 for the cast album of Your Arms Too Short to Box with God, a Broadway play based on the Biblical book of Matthew.
In 1978, Bey wrote and starred in Indigo, a cabaret show on the history of the blues that had an all-Black cast and crew. The show played to sold-out crowds for over a year and won two Dora Mavor Moore Awards, an honor presented annually by the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts. Indigo was widely credited with breaking ground for Black theater performers in Canada. Bey played leading roles in Shimmytime, a revue about the singer and actress Ethel Waters, and Madame Gertrude, about the blues singer Ma Rainey.
Bey released five jazz, blues, and gospel albums and numerous singles from 1970 to 1995, including live recordings from the Montreux Jazz Festival. She was part of the Canadian supergroup Northern Lights which performed the charity single "Tears Are Not Enough" in 1985. Bey can be seen in the music video for the song singing the line "Every woman, child and man" with Mark Holmes of Platinum Blonde and Lorraine Segato of The Parachute Club.
Bey’s holiday special Salome Bey’s Christmas Soul aired on CBC and featured guests Maureen Forrester, Billy Newton-Davis, Molly Johnson, Jackie Richardson, and the Faith Chorale Gospel Choir. Bey continued to appear in concert, often appearing with her daughters Tuku and Sate who, with other musicians, were known as Salome Bey & the Relatives.
In 1996, she received the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for lifetime achievement from the Black Theatre Workshop of Montreal, and in 2005 she was made an honorary member of the Order of Canada, the nation’s second highest civilian honor. In 2018, Bey was celebrated in the 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women project created by The Honourable Jean Augustine.
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| Salome Bey & husband Howard Matthews |
Salome Bey suffered from dementia in the final years of her life and died at the Lakeside Long Term Care home in Toronto on August 8, 2020, at the age of 86.
(Edited from Ross Coen bio @ Black past.org & Wikipedia)
