For all her accomplishments, Tamara Gayl Marshall does not have a mountain-size ego, but rather a jolly, childlike personality. And this can be seen while she’s on and off the stage.
“I still feel like a child but I’m becoming more comfortable in my own skin. When I get on the stage, you see what you see,” she said.
When EASY visited the musician’s Church Hill, Christ Church home and the location for her BEAT recording studio, Marshall welcomed us with a broad smile.
Marshall, who is the youngest of the four children Merle Ann Meyers and Dudley Marshall shared together, said she is grateful she can’t be anyone other than herself. But her voyage to this level of comfort has been years in the making.
She revealed, “I’ve accepted myself like this only quite recently.” When asked what brought her to this point, she paused and murmured “hmmm” as if she was unsure she wanted to disclose a secret. But after she gathered her thoughts, she said it was her mother’s battle with dementia that led her to that level of comfort.
“That [the dementia diagnosis brought out so much tears and pain. It switched my way of thinking and I realized I got so much more to do on this earth and there’s a responsibility that I have on this earth to share love,” the entertainer said.
The Why Can’t It Be Like This singer continued: “There are different things that are more important than my fears about how I look or asking, ‘Oh, what are people going to think?’ It’s a heavy load to carry around but boy have I let go of a lot of that.
“When something so hard hits so close to home, it makes you wake up! I realised how much I missed now that my mum is losing her memory,” she said.
Even before the Canada-born singer was touring the world and singing background for Maxi Priest or before her days with Spice & Company, she was often travelling back and forth to escape the seasons in Canada to seek the warmth in Barbados.
When she first arrived here at 11 years old, she described it as an “absolute culture shock”. And it was during this time that she experienced some of her loneliest days.
“When I was first started going to school, I was so scared and lonely.”
She stopped mid-sentence, hinting that she may shed a tear when retelling the memory, but the former Ellerslie Secondary student recovered quickly: “I’m emotionally okay!” she joked. Saying “it was a different world at that time”, she explained that because of her accent and her clothing she wore, she was laughed at.
Because of the “very blessed” relationships shared among the Marshall pack of her, Shelayne, David, and Eve, she said it was difficult being separated from them as they all went to different secondary schools after they arrived.
“I used to go by the headmaster’s office and beg to go home at lunch,” she said.
Just like her love for music, Marshall’s love for her family runs deep. This was apparent when she performed at Mahalia’s Corner recently and dedicated her original song, 64, to her parents.
Even after her parents’ separation, she said they still instilled core values which she has followed throughout her life.
“One thing mummy always said and I would never forget this is, ‘This is your family, this is us right here, nothing can get in’ (said with a balled fist) and this is how we are to this day,” she said.
Her life in Canada sparked her love for music and acting. She credited a family friend with giving her the first push. She said that she usually sang but did not know it could have been a career choice.
She recalled the family friend saying, ‘Tamara, you could really sing!’
“And I was, like, ‘Really?’ I know I loved to sing but I didn’t know I could actually sing.”
Marshall then went on to land musicals roles in productions over the years ( she actually started at age four with a role in The King And I) such as a television special on the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) with Lou Rawls and a major role in the off-broadway musical The Me Nobody Knows.
But it was her time living in Barbados, which she now claims as home, that kept her musical fire going. At 16 years old she entered the Musicians and Entertainers Guild of Barbados competition with the song Supernatural Voyage and claimed first prize, beating out her eventual bosses, Spice & Company. She would then go on to represent Barbados in the Caribbean Broadcasting Union competition, where she placed fourth.
In her teenage and young adult years, she was a part of several groups including Basil Yarde And Faith, Chocolate Affair, Axis And Split Endz and Kolor Blynd. And it was during these years that she was spotted by Nicholas Brancker, which then led to Maxi Priest.
Reflecting on her time touring, she smiled.
“It’s just like experiencing something that is so far out of reach for many people,” she said.
I didn’t like to fly and I would never forget one time we were delayed in Tokyo and they had to carry an extra engine on the plane. I was absolutely freaking out for 14 hours straight.”
The songwriter said she saw the airport personnel strapping the engine to the side of the plane and described it as “the craziest experience ever”.
In those moments she said it was her strong faith in God that helped her through.
Some years later she was chosen to tour with Spice & Company.
Some viewed her career path as “weird” because she is a Christian, but to her, touring with both groups did not compromise her morals for music.
She described Maxi Priest’s music as “lover’s rock” and Spice & Company’s as way ahead of its time. And she said their lyrics were “unbelievable” as they sang about love and freedom in Africa.
And if given the opportunity, Marshall said she would do it again because of the personal growth it inspired. In hindsight, she said though she would do it again, some behaviours would not be repeated and she believes she now knows when she should be listening and not talking..
“Wow! I didn’t have to say that . . . .I could have done that differently. Wow, I could have treated that person differently or wow, I could have not been around that person for them to treat me that way,” she said.
Marshall was also a crusie ship entertainer, which came to be, she believes, because of God and the power of confession. “I really believe that you have to be careful what you confess . . . . Make sure that you are speaking goodness. It becomes truth.
“I remember saying I would like work on a cruise ship. And about a week later a phone call came in from Dale Knight and he said there was vacancy on a cruise ship. That is exactly what I was confessing and it happened within a week,” she said.
On an average day Marshall can be found creating music at her studio. The perfectionist, who has done several musical genres including gospel, reggae, jazz, and theatrical musical, said she found it hard to find her musical identity.
During the interview, she pulled from her arsenal of songs and played I Am Your Kind, which she said she has been working on for about seven years.
“I’m too much of a perfectionist and I end up doing vocal after vocal. I can go on forever trying to get it perfect.”
And she said it’s that trait that often holds her back from releasing her own music.
Marshall said she enjoys having the BEAT studio at her fingertips, which she gave credit to her partner Jim McGowan for building.
And when she is not creating music or recording voice-overs for advertisements, she has been able to mentor young girls in the studio, providing background vocals where necessary.
Marshall hinted at a possible recording session with the local band NexCyx, which she said would be an amazing opportunity and she is set to accompany Spice & Company to Bermuda.