A Grateful Singer Prepares to Lift Her Voice for President and Country

Former Motown singer Kim Weston calls her star turn at President-elect George W. Bush’s inaugural concert Thursday “a miracle when I needed it the most.”

Less than two years ago, Weston--perhaps best remembered for her duets with Marvin Gaye, notably 1967’s “It Takes Two”--was crossing a street in Sherman Oaks when she was hit by a car. She was thrown into the air 10 feet and flipped three times before landing on a windshield.

“I left the imprint of my whole body in that windshield,” recalls Weston, now 61. “I was in the hospital for three hours and released with no broken bones. My body still aches, but I’m alive, and that’s as miraculous as my invitation to come to Washington. I’m still recuperating from that news.”

Just last week, Weston was tapped by the Bush Presidential Inaugural Committee to perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the 100-year-old song that today is commonly called the black national anthem.

She will arrive here today from Los Angeles just in time for an afternoon rehearsal at the Lincoln Memorial. The singer will be among a rainbow coalition of entertainers, headlined by singer Ricky Martin and including 18 other performers, among them Jessica Simpson, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Brooks & Dunn, Charlotte Church and Jon Secada. An expected 200,000 people will gather at the public event at the Washington Mall on Thursday.

“I will sing for my president, sing for my country and sing for my community,” says Weston, who quit show business in the early 1970s and now sings her favorite gospels at Greater Grace Church in Monrovia.

Weston will sing the song, originally written as a poem for Abraham Lincoln’s birthday celebration in 1900 by James Weldon Johnson and later set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson, on the very spot where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stood to deliver his “I have a dream” speech.

“I learned that song when I was in kindergarten,” says Weston, who recorded the tune in the late 1960s on the album “This Is America” as a tribute to King.

Her recording became so popular during the height of the civil rights movement that black-owned radio stations, as well as many others across the country, played it simultaneously four times a day for six months.

“The song signifies unity for black communities,” Weston says, adding that when she recorded it, “our country was in turmoil back then. There were riots. With the song, I wanted to tell my people that we need to come together and stand up and be strong.”

For Weston, that’s still a message worth sharing.

A politically savvy woman, she realizes that the Bush camp, which has sensitive relations with black voters, is sounding a note of unity with America by making the inauguration’s four days of festivities as diverse as possible.

“Any time an election occurs, ill feelings happen. Politics can be the roughest game of all,” she says. “And by this election being as close as it was, I’m sure there are still a lot of people who are upset that Vice President Al Gore didn’t win. But it’s over now. It’s time to come together as a country and be the great nation that we are. This is a perfect time to come back with this song, at a time when the country seems to be divided as it is over the election.”

“We are certainly thrilled that Miss Weston will be performing at the opening ceremonies,” says Natalie Rule, a spokeswoman for the Presidential Inaugural Committee. “We think her song will be a very special number and a wonderful performance.”

Weston is hoping to meet Bush, she says, “and give him a big hug.” She’s also counting on attending Saturday’s swearing-in ceremony as well as an inaugural ball or two or more. “There are eight, after all,” she adds.

She’s also hopeful that her presidential appearance will give her singing career a much-needed boost. Born in Detroit in December 1939, Weston recorded with Motown from 1961 to 1967. She has performed on Broadway and operated a performing arts program for kids in Detroit.

From 1996 to 1998 she lived in Israel with the Black Israelites, a community of 2,000 black Americans. She had moved there to be treated by doctors for what she thought was a stomach ailment and followed their strict vegan diet as a remedy. “It turned out the problem was nerves--mine,” she says, a result of working “15-hour days for 17 years” at the performing arts program she ran.

She has received many honors, including the Rhythm and Blues Foundation’s 1998 Pioneer Award. She is grateful to the New York group “for bringing me back” as a singer who for too long had been forgotten by many.

After receiving the award, she visited her sister, Blanche Ervin, pastor of Monrovia’s Greater Grace Church.

“I hadn’t decided to stay in L.A., but then I got hit by the car,” she says. Though grateful that she survived, the ordeal “really left me incapacitated. My nerves are better, so at least I got over that hurdle. My body still aches, but I thank the Lord that I landed on my feet,” even though she has since been through some rough times, financially and otherwise.

The singer still receives royalties from some of her recordings, “but it’s not enough to live on.” Still, her faith in God has been constant in her life and has made her strong.

And she’s grateful for the kindness of others, including assistance from the Society of Singers, an L.A.-based group founded 14 years ago with a mission to provide immediate financial assistance to professional singers in need. “They have helped me financially and emotionally,” Weston says, adding that she now lives in a building operated by the society.

“I feel like I’ve been handed a brand new beginning,” she says of the help. And about her singing for the president? “I’m ready for it,” she says, pausing to sing a few bars of “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”

Her upcoming performance “is definitely the shot in the arm that my career needs, and I thank God for being healthy enough to do it. I’m ready for work. Have voice, will sing.”