Lydia Pense | |
---|---|
Origin | San Francisco, California |
Genres | Rock, soul, jazz |
Occupation(s) | Singer |
Instrument | Vocals |
Years active | 1969–present |
Labels | Reprise (1972); Warner Bros. Records (1974); ABC (1976); Dig Music (2005) |
Lydia Pense is an American rock-soul-jazz singer who, since 1969, has performed with the band Cold Blood. Critics have compared her style to powerful singers including Janis Joplin [1] and Aretha Franklin.
Lydia Pense was born in San Francisco, California. Her family moved to Redwood City when she was 10. [2] At age 14, while attending Sequoia High School, Pense started singing with a band called the Dimensions, with guitarist Fred Tatman, Larry Hatch, and Kerry Yates. [2] She was a fan of Brenda Lee and was singing her songs, but the band encouraged her to sing R&B in the style of James Brown, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, and Ray Charles.
Janis Joplin had recommended Lydia Pense to music promoter Bill Graham to audition for the band Cold Blood. [1] Lydia joined Cold Blood in 1968, and the band was one of the earliest music groups to be signed by Graham's Fillmore Records. [3]
The band Cold Blood separated in the late 1970s. Pense suspended her music career in the early 1980s to raise her daughter, Danielle before reforming the group in 1988. [4] The band continues to record, tour and perform.
Their initial four albums, Cold Blood, Sisyphus, First Taste of Sin (produced by Donny Hathaway), and Thriller remain the band's best-known work.
Year | Album name | Band | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1969 | Cold Blood | Cold Blood | |
1971 | Sisyphus | Cold Blood | [5] |
1972 | Lights Out San Francisco (Voco Presents The Soul Of The Bay Area) | Various artists | Performed with the band Tower of Power. [6] |
1972 | First Taste of Sin | Cold Blood | |
1973 | Thriller | Cold Blood | |
1974 | Lydia | Cold Blood | |
1975 | The Best of Cold Blood | Cold Blood | |
1976 | Lydia Pense & Cold Blood | Lydia Pense and Cold Blood | this was the last album before the band's hiatus. [4] |
2001 | Vintage Blood: Live! 1973 | Live album | |
2005 | Transfusion | Lydia Pense and Cold Blood | |
2008 | Lydia Pense & Cold Blood: Live Blood "Live Album" | Lydia Pense and Cold Blood | |
2011 | The River City Sessions | Lydia Pense and Cold Blood | |
2015 | Soul Of The Gypsy | Lydia Pense and Cold Blood | [7] |
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer and songwriter. One of the most iconic and successful rock performers of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals, as well as her "electric" stage presence.
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton, was an American singer and songwriter of blues and R&B.
The Monterey International Pop Festival was a three-day music festival held June 16 to 18, 1967, at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. The festival is remembered for the first major American appearances by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Who and Ravi Shankar, the first large-scale public performance of Janis Joplin and the introduction of Otis Redding to a mass American audience.
Big Brother and the Holding Company are an American rock band that was formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Jefferson Airplane. After some initial personnel changes, the band became well known with the lineup of vocalist Janis Joplin, guitarists Sam Andrew and James Gurley, bassist Peter Albin, and drummer Dave Getz. Their second album Cheap Thrills, released in 1968, is considered one of the masterpieces of the psychedelic sound of San Francisco; it reached number one on the Billboard charts, and was ranked number 338 in Rolling Stone's the 500 greatest albums of all time. The album is also listed in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
Chester Leo "Chet" Helms, often called the father of San Francisco's 1967 "Summer of Love," was a music promoter and a counterculture figure in San Francisco during its hippie period in the mid- to-late 1960s.
The Fillmore West was a historic rock and roll music venue in San Francisco, California, US which became famous under the direction of concert promoter Bill Graham from 1968 to 1971. Named after The Fillmore at the intersection of Fillmore Street and Geary Boulevard, it stood at the southwest corner of Market Street and South Van Ness Avenue in the Civic Center district. In June 2018, the top two floors of the building reopened as SVN West, a new concert and corporate event venue.
The San Francisco sound refers to rock music performed live and recorded by San Francisco-based rock groups of the mid-1960s to early 1970s. It was associated with the counterculture community in San Francisco, particularly the Haight-Ashbury district, during these years. San Francisco is a westward-looking port city, a city that at the time was 'big enough' but not manic like New York City or spread out like Los Angeles. Hence, it could support a 'scene'. According to journalist Ed Vulliamy, "A core of Haight Ashbury bands played with each other, for each other"
Tracy Nelson is an American country and blues singer. She has been involved in the recording of over 20 albums in her recording career, which started in 1965.
Mic Gillette was an American brass player, born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area's East Bay. He is best known for being a member of the bands; Tower of Power, Cold Blood, and The Sons of Champlin. He played in the horn section with Tower of Power for 19 years.
James Martin Gurley was an American musician. He is best known as the principal lead guitarist of Big Brother and the Holding Company, a psychedelic/acid rock band from San Francisco which was fronted by singer Janis Joplin from 1966 to 1968.
Nick Gravenites is an American blues, rock and folk singer, songwriter, and guitarist, best known for his work with Electric Flag, Janis Joplin, Mike Bloomfield and several influential bands and individuals of the generation springing from the 1960s and 1970s. He has sometimes performed under the stage names Nick "The Greek" Gravenites and Gravy.
I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! is the debut solo and third studio album overall by American singer-songwriter Janis Joplin, released on September 11, 1969, by Columbia Records. It was the first album which Joplin recorded after leaving her former band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the only solo album released during her lifetime.
Big Brother & the Holding Company is the debut album by American rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, with Janis Joplin, their lead singer. Recorded during three days in December 1966 for Mainstream Records, it was released on August 23, 1967, shortly after the band's major success at the Monterey Pop Festival. Columbia Records took over the band's contract and re-released the album, adding two extra tracks, and putting Joplin's name on the cover. Several tracks on the album were released as singles, the most successful being "Down on Me" on its second release, in 1968.
Love, Janis is a musical stage show about the life and music of rock and roll singer Janis Joplin. It was conceived, adapted and directed by Randal Myler. It debuted Off-Broadway in 2001 at the Village Theater with musical direction by former Big Brother And The Holding Company band member Sam Andrew. The show had a long and healthy run, garnering over 700 performances.
Cold Blood is a long-standing R&B horn funk band founded by Larry Field in 1968, and was originally based in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. The band has also performed and recorded under the name Lydia Pense and Cold Blood, due to the popularity of their lead singer, Lydia Pense .
Catherine E. Richardson is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and narrator from the Chicago suburbs in Illinois. She is the lead singer for the band Jefferson Starship and her own Cathy Richardson Band, and has performed the Janis Joplin parts for Joplin's former band Big Brother and the Holding Company.
Kathryn Marie "Kathi" McDonald was an American blues and rock singer and songwriter. As a teenager she sang with different bands around the Pacific Northwest before she was discovered by Ike Turner. She sang as an Ikette with Ike & Tina Turner and eventually replaced Janis Joplin as the front woman of Big Brother and Holding Company. McDonald became a background vocalist for various artists, including Leon Russell, Joe Cocker, The Rolling Stones, Freddie King, and Long John Baldry. She also recorded as a solo artist and fronted her own band Kathi McDonald & Friends.
Kacee Clanton is an American, Nashville–based singer/songwriter, recording artist, stage actress, producer, and vocal and performance coach, who has worked as a background vocalist for recording artists Joe Cocker and Luis Miguel, and toured as lead vocalist with Big Brother and the Holding Company. She has played Janis Joplin in the musical Love, Janis and was the alternate lead on Broadway in the rock musical, A Night With Janis Joplin. She was also a vocal and performance instructor at Los Angeles College of Music. Both her music and vocals have been used in a variety of films, TV shows, and video games. She currently lives in the Nashville area and works as a singer, actor, producer and vocal coach.
Jo Baker was an American vocalist and songwriter, known primarily for her work with Elvin Bishop and Stoneground.
Cold Blood is the first studio LP album by Cold Blood, originally released in 1969. It was produced for San Francisco Records and distributed by Atlantic Records. The album reached #30 in Canada.