Diane Birch

Diane Birch was born 1983 in Michigan but has lived with her family in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Australia before moving back again to the states, settling in Portland Oregon. She released her first album called Bible Belt in 2009. The list of guest musicians for her first album is pretty impressive, including drummer Cindy Blackman (nr 16 on my Coolest Women In Music list).

Shirley Brown

Shirley Brown had her biggest hit in 1975 with the song Woman to Woman. The song spent two weeks at #1 in the Billboard R&B chart, and it was a million-selling single which also was nominated for a Grammy Award. Apart from this single Brown didn’t have much success with her with her recordings. Through the years she continued recording and has signed with many different labels. Since 1989 she I based in the southern states of the US where she is a popular performer and signed to a Mississippi label called Malaco Records.

Little Dragon

The name Little Dragon is the name of an electronic band with Yukimi Nagano as lead singer. It started out as a nickname Nagano eared for her temper in the studio. The name stuck and became the name of the band. Therefore, Little Dragon is the name of the band AND a nickname for Nagano. Yukimi Nagano is born in Sweden raised by her Swedish-American mother and her Japanese father. Aside from performing with her own band she has sung with Swedish jazz group Koop and has made guest appearances for Gorillaz (some claim that she provides the voice for the character Noodle in the band on their latest album Plastic Beach).

Laura Nyro - who is she?

Laura Nyro, born in New York 1947, is relatively unknown as a singer and her songs have had more success covered by other artists. Blood, Sweat and Tears, Peter, Paul and Mary, Barbara Streisand and The 5^th Dimension are a few examples of artist that have had hits with her songs. Ironically, Nyro herself had her biggest success with a song written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin called Up on the Roof. She never enjoyed her status as a celebrity. At the age of 24 she announced her retirement from the music business. A few years later she came back and released four more studio albums before she past away in 1997. During those years she turned down both The Tonight Show and The Late Show with David Letterman because of her discomfort with appearing on television. She only did a handful of TV appearances which might explain why she has remained relatively unknown.

Zoë Kravitz

With those parents who could expect anything else from this girl than that she would become a singer in a rock band? I can’t remember how I discovered her music, or rather the band’s music (she is the front singer of the band Elevator Fight). But I do know I was pleasantly surprised. I thought it would be yet another mainstream band. I also thought that their only reason for being famous was that they had Lenny Kravitz’ daughter as lead singer. Now I’m more surprised that I can’t find their music anywhere except for some live recordings on YouTube. I really like what I’ve heard so far. One of my favourites I don’t even know if it’s a song by the band or a solo song by Zoë. All I have found is a typical YouTube clip showing photos that have absolutely nothing to do with the music. If the information on the video is correct the song is called It’s OK.