Anita Belle Colton, known professionally as Anita O'Day, was an American jazz singer and self proclaimed “song stylist” widely admired for her sense of rhythm and dynamics, and her early big band appearances that shattered the traditional image of the "girl singer". Refusing to pander to any female stereotype, O'Day presented herself as a "hip" jazz musician, wearing a band jacket and skirt as opposed to an evening gown. She changed her surname from Colton to O'Day, pig Latin for "dough", slang for money.
Patricia Smyth is an American singer and songwriter. She first came into national attention with the rock band Scandal and went on to record and perform as a solo artist. Her distinctive voice and new wave image gained broad exposure through video recordings aired on cable music video channels such as MTV. Her debut solo album Never Enough was well received, and generated a pair of Top 100 hits. In the early 1990s she reached the top 10 with the hit single "Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough," a duet with Don Henley of the Eagles. She performed and co-wrote with James Ingram the song "Look What Love Has Done" for the 1994 motion picture Junior. The work earned her a Grammy Award nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media, as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.
Kate Anna Rusby is an English folk singer-songwriter from Penistone, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. Sometimes called the "Barnsley Nightingale", she has headlined various British folk festivals, and is one of the best known contemporary English folk singers. In 2001 The Guardian described her as "a superstar of the British acoustic scene." In 2007 the BBC website described her as "The first lady of young folkies". She is one of the few folk singers to have been nominated for the Mercury Prize.
Catherine Tift Merritt is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She has released seven studio albums, two for Lost Highway Records, two for Fantasy Records, and three for Yep Roc Records.
Patty Loveless is an American country music singer. She began performing in her teenaged years before signing her first recording contract with MCA Records' Nashville division in 1985. While her first few releases were unsuccessful, she broke through by decade's end with a cover of George Jones's "If My Heart Had Windows". Loveless issued five albums on MCA before moving to Epic Records in 1993, where she released nine more albums. Four of her albums—Honky Tonk Angel, Only What I Feel, When Fallen Angels Fly, and The Trouble with the Truth—are certified platinum in the United States. Loveless has charted 44 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including five which reached number one: "Timber, I'm Falling in Love", "Chains", "Blame It on Your Heart", "You Can Feel Bad", and "Lonely Too Long".
Mya Adriene Byrne is an American singer-songwriter whose works falls mostly in the Americana vein, a combination of folk, blues and country music. Based in New York for 13 years, Byrne currently resides in Brooklyn after 8 years in the Bay and performs solo or with various bands on both coasts. In 2014, Byrne publicly announced her transgender status and transition and has continued to work as a musician and performer.
Joni Amelia Fuller is an English singer/songwriter, pianist, violinist and composer from Lancashire. She is the founder of Your Strings Attached.
Danity Kane is an American girl group whose most recent line-up consisted of Aubrey O'Day, Dawn Richard, and Shannon Bex. The group originally had five members, but Wanita "D. Woods" Woodgett left the group in 2008, and Aundrea Fimbres left in 2014. Formed on the third iteration of MTV's Making the Band reality television series in 2005, they signed to Bad Boy Records by Diddy.
Aundrea Aurora Fimbres is a retired American singer. She was a member of the pop music group Danity Kane. She is a soprano and was known for her melismatic vocal runs, and falsetto registered harmonies and also for having the highest vocal range of her fellow band members.
Lisa Furukawa is a Japanese American pianist, singer, arranger, and songwriter based in Seattle, Washington. She has self-published 4 albums on the Yume label: Signal (2009), Reaching the Dragon (2006), Pearl Diver (2005), and This Moment is the Show (2001).
Elana Stone is an Australian singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and bandleader. Her debut solo album, In the Garden of Wild Things, was released in 2005 on the Jazzgroove label. Its follow-up, Your Anniversary, was released in 2009, and her third Kintsugi was released independently in 2015. She is also a member of the ARIA award–winning folk quartet All Our Exes Live in Texas, in which she provides vocals and accordion.
Indie folk is a music genre that arose in the 1990s among musicians from indie rock scenes influenced by folk music. Indie folk hybridizes the acoustic guitar melodies of traditional folk music with contemporary instrumentation.
Forest City Lovers are a Canadian folk indie pop band formed in 2006 in Toronto, Ontario. The band is centred on the songwriting of singer and guitarist Kat Burns. She is backed by violinist Mika Posen, bassist Kyle Donnelly, keyboardist Timothy Burton and drummer Christian Ingelevics.
Jane Vain and the Dark Matter is an indie rock band formed in 2005 from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The band is fronted by Calgary native Jamie Fooks, and signed to Edmonton’s Rectangle Records. They describe their sound as indie electro-pop. The Montreal Mirror called their music "melancholy" and "macabre," and Fooks has been compared to Emily Haines, Cat Power, and Fiona Apple. They released their first full-length album, Love Is Where the Smoke Is, in January 2008.
Benjy Davis Project was formed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 2001 as a simple folk-rock duo, but quickly grew into a popular regional band. Eventually expanding into a six-piece group, the Benjy Davis Project has recorded four albums and two EPs. They have played across the country as headliners and support act on shows with John Mayer, Better Than Ezra, Sister Hazel, North Mississippi All-Stars and others, as well as events like the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. In 2009 and 2010, the band performed at Hotel Carolina, an annual two-day singer-songwriter festival held in South Carolina.
Amber Rubarth is an American singer-songwriter and actress. She has toured extensively throughout Europe, North America, Japan, South Korea and South Africa.
Moira Lambert is a British singer and recording artist. She is probably best known for her collaboration with the electronica group Saint Etienne on the Neil Young cover "Only Love Can Break Your Heart".
stephaniesǐd was an American indie pop band from North Carolina. Band member Stephanie Morgan now performs as the solo artist Pink Mercury.
Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir is an Icelandic musician. Nanna originally performed solo, performing by the name Songbird. She is the lead vocalist and guitarist, along with Ragnar "Raggi" Þórhallsson, of the Icelandic indie folk band Of Monsters and Men.
Mipso is a North Carolina quartet formed in Chapel Hill and known for combining a traditional string band format with close harmony and a variety of modern influences. The band is made up of Wood Robinson, Jacob Sharp, Joseph Terrell and Libby Rodenbough.
