Lisa Fischer

An Ode to Kindness | Grateful For | 2

It is easy to forget to be kind—particularly in an environment that has the potential to induce stress.

In 2015, London Jazz Festival promoters, Serious, gifted me the opportunity to open for Lisa Fischer.

This was big.

While I didn’t yet know of Lisa’s colossal talent as a front woman, for 26 years she had been singing with a band that had soundtracked my entire relationship with my dad—The Rolling Stones.

Like many, I became more openly aware of her work with others like Sting, Alicia Keys, and of course Luther Vandross, through the Academy Award winning documentary, 20 Feet from Stardom. Through that film, I was introduced to her warmth, wisdom, and charm.

Now, I was opening for her…in England…at the Norfolk & Norwich Festival. I was playing with a string trio I had only done one show and rehearsal with. Needless to say, I was nervous.

For me, music venues are that particular environment that have the potential to induce stress, and more often than not, they deliver on that excruciating possibility.

I was opening for someone I had only ever seen on the movie screen and on stadium stages. More than that, I was opening for someone who was intimately connected to my relationship with my father.

For context, if The Stones came anywhere near the vicinity of my family home, we were going. And while dads are typically hard to shop for at Christmas, I could count on The Stones’ latest release—album, coffee table book, socks, 6” figurine—to satisfy my dad.

So, in a hallucinogenic pink and blue stage scarf I had picked up in London, I entered the glass doors of the Norwich Theatre Royal for soundcheck.

There she was.

She entered the lobby at the same time, almost as if she knew when I would be arriving.

Lisa Fischer walked towards me, opened her arms wide, and said, “You must be David.” She hugged me deeply, told me she had been listening to my music, and that she loved it.

I was flabbergasted.

The longer her greeting sat with me, the more awe-struck I was. The kindness Lisa showed me in that moment is one I deeply admire, and one I am still learning. It requires a kind of selflessness, vulnerability, and a generosity—qualities that aren’t always first on hand in the lead-up to a big show.

At that point, Lisa had been singing in the top realm of music industry fame for many, many years, and I imagine she had seen it all, including her fair share of towering egos. Yet here she was, with this bright openness and invitation to a stranger she would be sharing the stage with that evening.

She gave me permission to relax. She helped me to open up. I could focus on the reason we were all there—music. At the end of a year of many difficult shows, this was one of my best.

Video still of the show taken by Jeanette Wilkinson

Watching Lisa and her band, Grand Baton, perform afterwards was one of the most inspiring experiences I have been a part of—a “spiritual uplift” is how I would best describe it. I have since been to hear her and her band perform three times, including once with my Dad, whom she hugged after the show with that same warmth and generosity she showed me.

I write this because that moment has continued to inspire me to be better; to be more open and inviting; and to try and shed insecurity in hopes of creating deeper bonds of community.