Roberta Donnay | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Born | Washington, D.C., U.S. | August 10, 1966
Genres | Jazz, Blues, Americana |
Occupation(s) | Singer, composer, musician, poet, producer |
Instrument(s) | Vocals, Percussion, Guitar |
Years active | 1982–present |
Labels | Motéma, BluJazz, Pacific Coast Jazz, Rainforest |
Website | robertadonnay |
Roberta Donnay is an American jazz singer, musician, composer, and producer. [1] [2] She has released nine studio albums and has shared the stage with such artists as Booker T. Jones, Dr. John, David Grisman, John P. Hammond, Elvis Costello, Leon Russell, Michael McDonald, Neil Young, and Maria Muldaur. [3] [4] [5] [6] She toured extensively with Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks as a Lickette, providing vocals and percussion. [7] She has performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival, SXSW, the Telluride Jazz Festival, the Jacksonville Jazz Festival, and other venues across the United States.
Donnay's songs have been featured on The O.C. , Riverdale , Nash Bridges , Numb3rs , and PAN AM , among others. Her song, One World, was the theme for the United Nations 50th Anniversary and World AIDS Day in South Africa and earned her an ASCAP Composer Award. [8] [1]
Roberta Donnay grew up in Washington, D.C., and learned to sing from the radio. Jazz being her first love, she was influenced at an early age by Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Mae West, and Bessie Smith. [9] She began singing professionally at 16, wandering Europe with a knapsack and borrowing guitars on-site. [10] After relocating to San Francisco, she sang Dixieland and traditional jazz with "Dick Oxtot's Golden Age Jazz Band" and performed with "Tom Keats & his Tom Kats". Her first album, Catch the Wave, was the first indie CD released in the San Francisco Bay area. Her music has been produced by jazz producer Orrin Keepnews. As a singer and songwriter, Donnay toured the U.S. with her guitar and appeared on various shows. She returned to singing jazz full-time in 2005. She is a practicing Buddhist. [4]
She has performed with and opened shows for Bob Dorough, Dave Ellis, David Grisman, Junior Brown, Tommy Castro, Peter Coyote, Woody Harrelson, Ernestine Anderson, Dan Fogelberg, Johnny Lange, Huey Lewis, Eddie Money, Joe Sample, Lenny Williams, Mitch Woods, Neil Young, and Tuck & Patti, among others. [1] [11]
Donnay has released nine studio albums, three of which were recorded as Roberta Donnay & the Prohibition Mob Band. [12] [1] Bathtub Gin was named One of the Best Albums of 2015 by DownBeat Magazine. [13]
She formed the music group, Roberta Donnay & the Rhythm in the late 1980s and they performed together until the early 1990s. [14] [15] In 1999, Donnay signed a publishing deal with Heavy Hitters Music who placed her songs in such TV shows as, The Young and the Restless , One Life to Live , All My Children , and That's Life . [1] [4] Her songs have also been featured on The Unit , Nash Bridges , Numbers , PAN AM , and That's Life .
In 2000, Donnay founded, DivaBands (inspired by the Lilith Fair ), a line-up of various female singer-songwriters based in the San Francisco Bay Area, whom Donnay also performed with. [16] [17] DivaBands' first gig was a benefit concert at the Red Devil Lounge in San Francisco which had such a large turnout that the club owner suggested she book another show at one of his other clubs. [18] DivaBands garnered such a successful following in California that Donnay organized a national tour performing in Arizona, Washington, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota. [19] [20] [21]
Her song, "One World," became a theme for the United Nations 50th Anniversary and was performed on 5 continents as a world peace anthem. It was also chosen as the theme for World AIDS Day in South Africa in 2003. [1] [10]
Howard Dwaine Dorough is an American singer and actor. He is a member of the pop vocal group Backstreet Boys.
Ann Lennox is a Scottish singer-songwriter, political activist and philanthropist. After achieving moderate success in the late 1970s as part of the new wave band the Tourists, she and fellow musician Dave Stewart went on to achieve international success in the 1980s as Eurythmics. Appearing in the 1983 music video for "Sweet Dreams " with orange cropped hair and wearing a man's business suit, the BBC states, "all eyes were on Annie Lennox, the singer whose powerful androgynous look defied the male gaze". Subsequent hits with Eurythmics include "There Must Be an Angel ", "Love Is a Stranger" and "Here Comes the Rain Again".
The Charlatans were an American folk rock and psychedelic rock band that played a role in the development of the San Francisco Haight-Ashbury music scene during the 1960s. They are often cited by critics as being the first group to play in the style that became known as the San Francisco Sound.
Daniel Ivan Hicks was an American singer-songwriter, musician, and the leader of Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks. His idiosyncratic style combined elements of cowboy folk, jazz, country, swing, bluegrass, pop, and gypsy music. He is perhaps best known for the songs "I Scare Myself" and "Canned Music". His songs are frequently infused with humor, as evidenced by the title of his tune "How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?". His album Live at Davies (2013) capped over forty years of music.
Robert Lrod Dorough was an American bebop and cool jazz vocalist, pianist, composer, songwriter, arranger, and producer. Dorough became famous as the composer and performer of songs in the TV series Schoolhouse Rock!, as well as for his work with Miles Davis, Blossom Dearie, and others.
Fran Landesman was an American lyricist and poet. She grew up in New York City and lived for years in St. Louis, Missouri, where her husband Jay Landesman operated the Crystal Palace nightclub. One of her best-known songs is "Spring Can Really Hang You up the Most".
Charmaine Neville is a New Orleans-based jazz singer.
John Josephus Hicks Jr. was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. He was leader of more than 30 recordings and played as a sideman on more than 300.
Ingrid Jensen is a Canadian jazz trumpeter.
Lavay Smith is an American singer specializing in swing and blues. She tours with her eight-piece "little big band", Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers.
Carmen Latretta Lundy is an American jazz singer. She has been performing for three decades, with a focus on original material.
LEAF Community Arts or LEAF, is a non-profit organization established to build community and enrich lives through the arts, locally and globally, through festivals, events, mentoring, and educational programs. It was organized by the producers of the Lake Eden Arts Festival, now known simply as "LEAF" or the "LEAF Festival", held in Black Mountain, North Carolina.
"Compared to What" is a protest song written by Gene McDaniels. It was recorded by Roberta Flack in February 1969 for her debut album First Take, but became better known following a performance by Les McCann and Eddie Harris at the Montreux Jazz Festival in June of that year. The song appeared as the opening track on their 1969 album Swiss Movement on the Atlantic label. The album was certified Gold in sales in the United States. The song has been recorded by more than 270 performers, including Ray Charles and Brian Auger.
Amy London is a jazz singer and educator who has appeared on Broadway and in the vocal group The Royal Bopsters. London grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. She moved to Manhattan in 1980 and began teaching jazz vocals in 1984.
Everybody's Talkin' 'Bout Miss Thing! is the second album by Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers.
Roseanna Elizabeth Vitro is a jazz singer and teacher from Arkansas.
Trudy Kerr is an Australian-born jazz musician, teacher, radio presenter and label owner. Since 1997 she has released ten studio albums and a compilation album, Contemplation. Kerr has performed concerts in the UK, continental Europe, East Asia and Australia. She resides in Beckenham with her husband, Geoff Gascoyne, a fellow jazz musician who plays double bass.
Elise Wood is a jazz flautist.
Tuva Semmingsen is a Norwegian mezzo-soprano and coloratura singer.
The Hot Club of San Francisco is an American gypsy jazz band. Led by guitarist, songwriter, and arranger Paul 'Pazzo' Mehling, the group uses the instrumentation of violin, bass, and guitars from Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli’s Quintette du Hot Club de France and performs arrangements of gypsy jazz standards, pop songs, and original compositions by Mehling. The Hot Club of San Francisco includes violinist Evan Price, the vocals of various members, and a swing rhythm section. In the book, Django Reinhardt and the Illustrated History of Gypsy Jazz, Michael Dregni refers to the Hot Club of San Francisco as "one of the first American gypsy jazz bands."