AverySunshine | |
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 AverySunshine in 2016 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Denise Nicole White |
| Born | May 22, 1975 Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Genres | R&B, soul |
| Occupations | Singer, songwriter |
| Instruments | Piano, vocals |
| Years active | 1993–present |
| Labels | BigShine, Shanachie |
| Website | averysunshine |
Denise Nicole White (born May 22, 1975), [1] known professionally as AverySunshine, [2] is an American singer, songwriter and pianist. [3]
White was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, to Ruth Eleanor White and Irving Cyril White. She began playing piano at 8, after she saw a classmate perform, and learned to read hymns before beginning to study classical music at 11. At 13, she expanded her repertoire to include jazz and had her first recital. [4] Three years later, her aunt, a church choir director, asked Sunshine to fill in for her during a Sunday service at a Catholic church; she was subsequently hired by churches of all denominations, including the AME Church, where she performed with the award-winning Wilmington/Chester Mass Choir. [5] [6]
White, who sang in her high school choir, graduated from the Country Day School of the Sacred Heart in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, in 1993. She attended Spelman College in Atlanta, [7] and although she enrolled as a piano major, she changed course after she became disillusioned with the music program. Sunshine graduated with a degree in philosophy in 1998. [8]
In college, White met Maia Nkenge Wilson, a vocal major, and together they formed a gospel and R&B singing duo, DaisyRew. [6] [9] In addition to performing in Africa, DaisyRew performed at churches in the area and at clubs, including the Apache Café, which was noted for launching the careers of several prominent artists, including India.Arie. Wilson was cast in a Broadway role following college, and Sunshine was hired as the Minister of Music at the St. Paul AME Church in Atlanta. DaisyRew continued to perform when Wilson, on breaks from her theatrical career in New York, returned to Atlanta. [10]
While working at the St. Paul AME Church, White met Dana Johnson, a guitarist, producer and songwriter who had previously worked with India.Arie. [11] White, Johnson and Wilson began working together in 2003 with Johnson writing and producing the music, in addition to managing DaisyRew's career. [12] Soon after, Wilson was again cast in a Broadway production and she left for New York. White then adopted the name AverySunshine. Her stage name is derived from the characters Shug Avery from The Color Purple and Sunshine from Harlem Nights. [6]
In 2005, White and Johnson recorded "Stalker", a neo soul song, which a friend, Chris Brann, set to a house beat. The track became a dance hit on a Japanese record label, which led to a series of live dates in Japan. [13]
White and Johnson began work on what became AverySunshine's self-titled first album, released in 2010 on their own label, BigShine. Recorded mainly at White's home with ProTools, the record included guest appearances by the pianist Takana Miyamoto, the vibraphone player Roy Ayers and Christian McBride. [14] [15] The record was praised by the media, with USA Today calling it "refreshingly original" [16] and The Washington Post describing it as "a radiant brand of soul". [17] White — a single mother of two – focused on AverySunshine, but also accepted jobs as a keyboard player with artists including Tyler Perry and Jennifer Holliday and worked as a choral director for Atlanta performances by artists such as Michael Bublé, Anthony Hamilton and David Foster. [18] From 2010 until late 2013, AverySunshine toured consistently, and developed a following throughout the United States, [19] the UK, [20] Europe and Africa. [21] They began recording a second album, The Sunroom, in November 2013, which was released in May 2014 through a partnership with Shanachie Records. [22] In 2017, she released her third album, Twenty Sixty Four.
White lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Divorced in 2008, she is the mother of two children, a daughter, Drew, and a son, Evan. On April 3, 2016, White married her guitarist Dana Johnson. [13] [23]
Bernice Johnson Reagon was an American song leader, composer, professor of American history, curator at the Smithsonian, and social activist. In the early 1960s, she was a founding member of the Freedom Singers, organized by the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the Albany Movement for civil rights in Georgia. In 1973, she founded the all-black female a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock, based in Washington, D.C. Reagon, along with other members of the SNCC Freedom Singers, realized the power of collective singing to unify the disparate groups who began to work together in the 1964 Freedom Summer protests in the South.
"After a song", Reagon recalled, "the differences between us were not so great. Somehow, making a song required an expression of that which was common to us all.... This music was like an instrument, like holding a tool in your hand."
Spelman College is a private, historically Black, women's liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It is a founding member of the Atlanta University Center academic consortium. Founded in 1881 as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary, Spelman awarded its first college degrees in 1901 and is the oldest private historically Black liberal arts institution for women.
Dame Caroline Alice Spelman is a British Conservative Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Meriden in the West Midlands from 1997 to 2019. From May 2010 to September 2012 she was the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in David Cameron's coalition cabinet, and was sworn as a Privy Counsellor on 13 May 2010.
Katrina and the Waves were a British rock band formed in Cambridge in 1981, widely known for their 1985 hit "Walking on Sunshine". They won the 1997 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Love Shine a Light".
Katrina Elizabeth Leskanich is an American musician and the former lead singer of the British pop rock band Katrina and the Waves. Their song "Walking on Sunshine" was an international hit in 1985. In 1997, the band won the Eurovision Song Contest for the United Kingdom with the song "Love Shine a Light". Both songs were written by Leskanich's long-term bandmate Kimberley Rew.
"Love Shine a Light" is a song by British rock band Katrina and the Waves written by Kimberley Rew. It represented the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 1997 held in Dublin, resulting in the country's fifth and most recent win at the contest. It was released as a single on 28 April 1997 and later included on the band's ninth studio album, Walk on Water (1997), serving as the album's lead single.
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Chanté Torrane Moore is an American singer-songwriter, television personality, and author. Rising to fame in the early 1990s, Moore established herself as an R&B singer.
Ke'Tara Shavon "KeKe" Wyatt is an American singer-songwriter and television personality. After performing in a number of girl bands and working as a songwriter during her teenage years, in 2000 she garnered national attention after her successful collaboration with fellow R&B singer Avant, In 2001 her rendition of "Nothing in This World" led to a nomination for the Best New R&B/Soul/Rap Artist award at the Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards. After a number of charting collaborations and solo releases, in 2012 she starred as a cast member in TV One's R&B Divas: Atlanta, which featured the lives of five 1990s chart-topping R&B singers. She was featured in all 3 seasons of the show. She also performed with the group at events such as Essence Music Festival.
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"Walking on Sunshine" is a song written by Kimberley Rew for British rock band Katrina and the Waves' 1983 eponymous debut full-length album. The rerecorded version was at first released on the band's 1985 self-titled album as the album's second single and reached No. 4 in Australia, No. 9 in the United States and No. 8 in the United Kingdom. It was the Waves' first American top 40 hit, and their biggest success in the UK until "Love Shine a Light" (1997), which won them the Eurovision Song Contest 1997 held in Dublin.
Laura Celestia "Cettie" Spelman Rockefeller was an American abolitionist, philanthropist, school teacher, and prominent member of the Rockefeller family. Her husband was Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. Spelman College in Atlanta and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial were named for her.
The Freedom Singers originated as a quartet formed in 1962 at Albany State College in Albany, Georgia. After folk singer Pete Seeger witnessed the power of their congregational-style of singing, which fused black Baptist a cappella church singing with popular music at the time, as well as protest songs and chants. Churches were considered to be safe spaces, acting as a shelter from the racism of the outside world. As a result, churches paved the way for the creation of the freedom song. After witnessing the influence of freedom songs, Seeger suggested The Freedom Singers as a touring group to the SNCC executive secretary James Forman as a way to fuel future campaigns. Intrinsically connected, their performances drew aid and support to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the emerging civil rights movement. As a result, communal song became essential to empowering and educating audiences about civil rights issues and a powerful social weapon of influence in the fight against Jim Crow segregation. Their most notable song “We Shall Not Be Moved” translated from the original Freedom Singers to the second generation of Freedom Singers, and finally to the Freedom Voices, made up of field secretaries from SNCC. "We Shall Not Be Moved" is considered by many to be the "face" of the Civil Rights movement. Rutha Mae Harris, a former freedom singer, speculated that without the music force of broad communal singing, the civil rights movement may not have resonated beyond the struggles of the Jim Crow South. Since the Freedom Singers were so successful, a second group was created called the Freedom Voices.
I Dream is a musical by Douglas Tappin, that tells the story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s life, culminating in the events leading up to his assassination. Originally premiering in Atlanta in 2010, I Dream blends musical theater and rhythm and blues, highlighting the pivotal moments of the civil rights movement and Dr. King's personal struggles. Over time, the production evolved into semi-staged opera performances in multiple cities but has now returned to its musical roots.
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