Jackie Shane was an undeniable star. The type of artist who radiated so much talent and charisma that she broke barriers by simply being her authentic self. A Black trans woman in a time where conformity was viewed as the only path to success, her journey to stardom was anything but typical.
In the wonderful documentary Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story, directors Michael Mabbott and Lucah Rosenberg-Lee’s celebrate a musical icon whose impact still reverberates to this day. A trailblazer in more ways than one, Shane’s musical career started off in Nashville as a teenager. Despite making a name for herself performing at various venues and car, she knew that her talents could only go so far in the south. After all, she was living in a time where simply having Black skin was enough to provoke hatred and violence in others. Being trans added a whole other layer of danger.
Hitting the road with the Frank Motley band, Shane gained a reputation on the night club circuit as a brilliant performer who wowed crowds from Boston to Toronto. While the seeds of her talents were spread across various cities, it was Cornwall, Ontario that inspired her to plant her roots in Canadian soil. Feeling that she could truly be herself in Canada, Shane moved to Montreal before eventually settling in Toronto in the 1960s.
It was in the land of maple syrup and hockey that Shane rode a wave of success, including recording her hit record “Any Other Way”, until her mysterious disappearance in 1971.
While Shane may have found a safe haven in Canada, Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story reminds audiences that she still endured her fair share of racism. Popular radio stations, like CHUM 1050, were reluctant to play Black artists on their airwaves. She also had to deal with promotional material that routinely misgendered her.
As Mabbott and Rosenberg-Lee’s film captures, even though others attempted to put her in a corner, Shane refused to stay there. She remained true to her identity even in her reclusive years. Raising the curtain on the years she was out of the spotlight; the film shows that her years away from the stage was just as compelling as her time on it.
Using a never-released phone conversation involving Shane as its foundation, the documentary constructs a vibrant portrait of the singer’s life. Since there is limited archival footage of her outside of a performance on the “Night Train Show,” the filmmakers incorporate fantastic rotoscope animation that perfectly captures her presence on stage.
What made her even more remarkable was the fact that her music spoke to multiple people on different levels. Some were drawn to her songs about love and life, while those in marginalized groups found comfort in the defiant way her lyrics slyly reaffirmed her queerness.
Jackie Shane’s life was filled with plenty of hardship, but Mabbott and Rosenberg-Lee avoid stepping in the quicksand of trauma. Their film reminds audiences that the trans experience is diverse, and not only tales of exclusion and violence. They humanize Shane as a person who was worthy of love and loyalty to family even in times when she could have severed the ropes that bound her to some toxic individuals.
An enchanting celebration of an artist whose praises are still sung to this day, Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story is a superb examination of what it means to truly live in one’s own skin.
