In 1997, Ms. Wilson toured internationally in Mr. Marsalis’s Pulitzer Prize-winning jazz oratorio, “Blood on the Fields.” At the time, the trumpeter and composer introduced her as “Mississippi’s finest, Cassandra Wilson.” Years later, he added, “She was extremely serious about learning all of her parts on the piano and brought so much soul and understanding to this music, I was grateful and remain even more so as times have passed.”
A musical home
Cassandra Marie Fowlkes, the youngest of three children, was born in Jackson on Dec. 4, 1955. Her mother, Mary (McDaniel) Fowlkes, was a public school system educator. Her father, Herman Fowlkes Jr., was variously a postal worker, an insurance agent and a music teacher; he also played electric bass in local jazz and blues combos.
Growing up in a musical home, Cassandra played classical piano throughout her early childhood, switched to clarinet and guitar by her teens, and also began experimenting with songwriting at 13.
In Jackson, she was also surrounded by the Delta blues and would later reinterpret milestones of the form such as “Honey Bee” by Muddy Waters, “Death Letter” by Son House and at least three songs by Robert Johnson: “Come On in My Kitchen,” “Hot Tamales” and “Hell Hound on My Trail.”
In her earliest days, Mississippi schools were still rigorously segregated, and she later reported having little contact with white students until the 11th grade, when she won the role of Dorothy in a school production of “The Wizard of Oz.”
In high school, she also formed a folk trio with two white male classmates with whom she had bonded over a shared appreciation of Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. “We’d just get together and play music,” she told The Oxford American in 1997. “So the exchange that occurred during those years was eye-opening and important to my way of thinking about music and its boundaries.”
