..Last night FM radio was on R&B and it was 'Ready Or Not'. ...I was just by myself dancing. And it was oh, my! ...I came out of R&B. ...That's why when people try to put me in a box, like no! There are certain songs I hear, like The Stylistics—oooooh! ... 'You Make Me Feel Brand New' ...my husband and I, that was our song!

Reminiscing is the svelte, statuesque (5' 8 ½ ) and still stunning, deeply brown-eyed Nancy Wilson, three-time Grammy winner, most recently for Best Jazz Vocal Album, Turned To Blue (MCG Jazz). Arguably the most glamorous story-telling song stylist grandma since Marlene Dietrich, this month she's celebrating her seventieth birthday in concert at Carnegie Hall, and then again later this summer at the Hollywood Bowl.

Born in Chillicothe, Ohio, Wilson grew up in Columbus, where her father's providing early exposure to the likes of Billy Eckstine, Louis Jordan, Ruth Brown and Bullmoose Jackson's "I Want a Bowlegged Woman nurtured what evolved into Wilson's keen, clarion blend of gospel, blues, jazz and R&B. Mention Jimmy Scott, whom she first heard when only ten and she flatly declares, "I still sound like Jimmy Scott.

A professional singer at fifteen, she began performing in clubs in the Columbus area. After graduating high school she enrolled in college to become a teacher. In 1956, her desire to sing won out and she left to join The Rusty Bryant Band. Bryant had been pursuing her to sing with his band ever since she'd sat in with them on her high school prom night. She recalls, "He was at my father's house the next morning asking me to go on the road with him, which I did not do. I went to college first and then I joined the band. ...We had the best band! "

Even more importantly, it was through Bryant that she made one of the greatest connections of her career. "Rusty Bryant introduced me to Cannonball and Nat [Adderley] at the corner of 52nd Street and Broadway in New York. That was when they had first come up from Florida and things weren't happening with them. John Levy was managing them and so they decided Nat was going to go out with Lionel Hampton and Cannon would go with Miles [Davis].

"The next time I met Cannon he was with Miles at a club in Columbus, Marty's 502. Everybody knew I was in no rush to get to New York, but Cannon knew that I wanted to get with John Levy [He eventually became her longtime manager]. Cannon said, 'When you're ready, give me a call.'

Asked how she knew just when she was "ready, Wilson's reply is as characteristically straight-ahead as is her singing. "Well, I have always known 'the gift' was just that. I had enough strength and belief in this god to know he was kind. He did not give me the gift of the lyric to make that a sin [to sing secular music]. ...It was like OK, I know this is a gift and I want to use it wisely, but I didn't see a lot of happiness in show business. I was in no rush.

Warming to memories of Adderley, Wilson says, "Well aside from the friendship, the family thing that we had. From the stage he taught me more without saying it, without being a professor. People walked away from his performances with an absolute understanding of what he did. He didn't tell you 'this is what we're doing with this bar' or anything. He taught with his music. I was discussing this with some of his wonderful musicians. They all felt the same way. Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley taught from the floor. Phil Woods is another who does that and feels that way about Cannon, and the drummer Roy McCurdy, he's been with me 27 years, was with Cannonball. So Cannon is still onstage with me every night.

In 1961, they recorded the now-classic Nancy Wilson & Cannonball Adderley (Capitol). Drummer Louis Hayes remembers, "You know, with some recording sessions that you do there are problems. We didn't have that with this group. Everything was very upbeat. Everybody felt like it was a winner. He beams when speaking about Wilson. "She has such a wonderful voice.

"And her personality and presence are so phenomenal, Hayes continues. "She really can communicate with an audience. She can sell herself and her song on a very high level. Naturally, coming from her background—the Dinah Washington era and Jimmy Scott—it's soul, but very modern. Very high level, modern sound. She could take that sound and move on from Dinah to now. And Gerald Wilson, who as trumpeter and bandleader worked with her frequently, raves, "She could sing anything. Up-tempo, the blues, she could do everything.

Among her many dozens of albums, Lush Life (Blue Note, 1967), with Billy May remains, "my favorite of all the albums I've done, says Wilson. She cherishes a note May wrote to her afterwards saying how grateful he was that, "God had seen fit to put me here to do this.