Songs For And About Momma…”Better Day’s” Dianne Reeves
By PATRICK AMBROSE The Morning News
While in Los Angeles during the early ‘80s, Reeves wrote “Better Days,” often referred to by fans as “The Grandma Song.” A 1988 rerecording of Reeves’s signature tune spent 12 weeks on Billboard Magazine’s R&B charts. The moving lyrics vividly recount experiences shared with her grandmother and how their relationship became a source of inner strength for Reeves. Over the years, she has expanded “Better Days” into an enchanting montage of childhood memories that never fails to enthrall audiences whenever it’s performed live.
“‘Better Days’ came out of work I had been doing with another songwriter, Tony Lorrich, who coauthored it with me,” she explained. “My grandmother had passed away and so had his mother, so the song is about both of them. And people have even said to me that [‘Better Days’] reminded them of another special relative, maybe an uncle or an aunt.”
The freedom to write and release music that falls outside the realm of jazz isn’t anything unusual to Reeves, who insists that vocalists like Holiday, Fitzgerald, and Vaughan all enriched their repertoires with diverse material.
