Still from YouTube 
 
 
 
 “Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness,” the revered poet and activist, Maya Angelou, who died Wednesday at age 86, once described her relationship with songwriting. As the former U.S. Poet Laureate and the author of a classic memoir, she’ll likely be remembered most for her writing, but Angelou’s talents extended well beyond the written and spoken word. In fact, in the early 1950s—a decade before her first published writing—Angelou started out as an aspiring dancer and singer who slowly gained a following from her performances in local San Francisco nightclubs. 
 
 And in 1957, at the height of the calypso movement—a style popularized by Harry Belafonte—Angelou recorded her first and only album, Miss Calypso. In it, she covers Nat King Cole’s “Calypso Blues” and Louis Jordan’s “Run Joe,” using her deep vibrato to create a simmering fusion of jazz and Afro-Caribbean rhythms. The album even partly inspired her first feature film, Calypso Heat Wave, in which she both starred and sang. Though short-lived, Angelou’s music career also included songwriting credits for the legendary B.B. King on two tracks he recorded for the Quincy Jones-produced soundtrack to Sidney Poitier’s For Love of Ivy. 
 
 Advertisement 
 
 
 
 As we reflect on Angelou’s life and her words, it’s worth taking a few minutes at least to get acquainted with the music she left us with as well. 
 
 “Run Joe” (1957, Calypso Heat Wave) 
 
 “Stone Cold Dead in the Market” (1957, Miss Calypso) 
 
 Advertisement 
 
 
 
 “You Put It on Me” (recorded by B. B. King, written by Angelou, 1968, For Love of Ivy soundtrack) 
 
 “The B.B. Jones” (recorded by B. B. King, written by Angelou, 1968, For Love of Ivy soundtrack) 
 
 “Sesame Street: My Name” ||||| But Angelou always felt teaching to be her true vocation, and often framed her other activities in that light. She was the Reynolds professor of American studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem. Perhaps she became best known to the American public through her work as a poet (as improbable as that may seem given the obscurity poets generally endure in this country). There have been 19 poets laureate since the position was created in 1986 and Angelou never held the title herself, but if anyone qualified for the position, it was she. Her reading of her poem "On the Pulse of the Morning" at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton captured the potential and optimism many Americans felt at the passing of the Reagan-Bush era. She was presented with the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by President Barack Obama in 2011.
– Writer, inaugural poet, storyteller, mentor, civil rights activist, Grammy winner, journalist, streetcar conductor, and even madam—Maya Angelou wore a vast rainbow of hats during her 86 years, and Americans wasted no time today in paying homage to the fiercely eloquent force of nature. Without ado: President Obama: Citing "a brilliant writer, a fierce friend, and a truly phenomenal woman," Obama noted that his own sister is named for the poet, who "above all, was a storyteller—and her greatest stories were true. The voice she found helped generations of Americans find their rainbow amidst the clouds, and inspired the rest of us to be our best selves." President Clinton: "America has lost a national treasure; and Hillary and I, a beloved friend. I will always be grateful. The poems and stories she wrote and read to us in her commanding voice were gifts of wisdom and wit, courage and grace." Oprah Winfrey: "I've been blessed to have Maya Angelou as my mentor, mother/sister, and friend since my twenties. She was there for me always, guiding me through some of the most important years of my life. The world knows her as a poet but at the heart of her, she was a teacher. 'When you learn, teach. When you get, give,' is one of my best lessons from her. She moved through the world with unshakeable calm, confidence and a fierce grace. I loved her and I know she loved me. I will profoundly miss her. She will always be the rainbow in my clouds." Over at Slate, Dee Lockett reminds us that "Angelou’s talents extended well beyond the written and spoken word." In the '50s, Angelou was an aspiring singer and dancer who eventually recorded an album, Miss Calypso, which in turn inspired her first film, Calypso Heat Wave. At Salon, Laura Miller lauds Angelou as "the voice of America," a poet who even had a line of Hallmark cards for which she was mocked, "but the public adored her and found in her words both wisdom and comfort. Angelou’s is a style that lends itself well to the realm of social media, with its informal habit of sharing and passing along quotations and mottos."