by Allison Flanagan
We may know Molly Ringwald from her roles as Samantha Baker in Sixteen Candles and Claire Standish in The Breakfast Club, or her novel When It Happens to You, but we may not know that she also has “singer” in her long list of talents. Ringwald has been singing for as long as she can remember. In 1980, Ringwald even performed as a lead vocalist on two Disney albums. She sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “This Is My Country,” and “God Bless America” on their patriotic album Yankee Doodle Mickey as well as “The First Noel” on Disney’s Merry Christmas Carols. 33 years later, after soaring in the acting world, Ringwald surprised the world in 2013 when she released her debut studio album, Except Sometimes, a jazz record that pays homage to the American Songbook, a collection of the most important and influential American popular songs and jazz standards from the 20th century.
While she performed covers of traditional holiday songs and patriotic songs for Disney, Molly Ringwald has a true passion for jazz music. Her father inspired her love of music, as he is a jazz musician. He started off as a more “modern musician” in the 1950s, then he found his place in traditional jazz after Ringwald was born. She sang with her father’s jazz band when she was three years old, and has had a place in her heart for jazz ever since. Ringwald describes her passion for jazz as “[her] musical equivalent of comfort food. It’s always where [she] goes back to when [she] wants to feel grounded.” Releasing Except Sometimes was a long-time coming for Ringwald, as she teetered around the idea of creating a studio album since she began her acting career. Like many others, Ringwald felt a sense of doubt in herself when it came to starting a music career. She wondered if people would appreciate what she sang, or if they would even like it at all. Her thoughts were proven wrong as the world welcomed this album with open arms. The New York Times raved that “the spin [Ringwald] brings to the American Songbook is thoroughly contemporary… the same brashness and zaniness that Madonna breathed to pop.” Since the album’s release, Ringwald and her band have performed over 250 shows in 7 countries, and her album peaked at number seven on the Billboard Jazz Charts. The album has ten tracks, and one pays homage to her days on The Breakfast Club, with a cover of “Don’t You (Forget About Me).”
She performed at SUNY Geneseo in 2015, just two years after the release of her album. Her band included a piano, bass, drums, alto saxophone, and guitar. Jazz is not always the go-to music genre for an average college student to listen to, but Ringwald won her audience over. Her smooth jazz notes accompanied by her band brightened Wadsworth Auditorium, and the audience could not divert their attention to anything else. She performed her cover of “Don’t You (Forget About Me) with a soft-jazz twist, peaking interest of the audience. The passion that she has for her music clearly showed during the performance. From singing with her father’s band at age three, to performing her own jazz album across the world, Molly Ringwald is truly a force. She may be that girl we recognize from The Breakfast Club, but now we recognize her as a successful jazz singer.