Linda Tillery, vocalist; speaker; producer; arranger and teacher has dedicated much of the last decade of her artistic life to the research, teaching and performance of the great African-American oral tradition of song, stick and story, the ancestor of today's American popular song.

Tillery's music reflects both her extraordinarily eclectic interests and her restless inquiries into African American culture. At 19, she exchanged her classical training as a bassist for the role of lead singer in the Loading Zone, the seminal psychedelic-era Berkeley band which defined itself with a classic Southern soul sound inspired by the Stax Records rhythm section and such Memphis bands as the Mar-Keys.

In the '70s and '80s, she branched out in many directions, recording three albums under her own name and becoming a key figure in women's music as staff musician and producer for Olivia Records. Her second solo recording, Linda Tillery, won a Bammy (Bay Area Music Award) for "Best Independently Produced Album" and Tillery was twice named "Outstanding Female Vocalist" at the Bay Area Jazz Awards. She performed regularly with such popular Bay Area club bands as Rhythmus 21 (with Ray Obiedo and Bonnie Hayes), Kick, and the Solid Senders (the Monday night house band at Boz Scaggs nightclub, Slim's) and has appeared on over 50 recordings - by Santana, Boz Scaggs, Kenny Loggins, Sheila E, Holly Near, Andy Narrell, Mary Watkins, John Santos, Keith Terry, Turtle Island String Quartet, Oleta Adams, Huey Lewis & The News, Keola Beamer, Linda Ronstadt, and others.

Further testing her talents, Tillery performed in "Jukebox," a live radio piece with Danny Glover, recorded songs for the MarIon Riggs films "Color Adjustment," "Fear of Disclosure," and "Black Is Black Ain't", and recorded the soundtrack for the play "Letters from a New England Negro" by poet/novelist Sherley Anne Williams. She narrated the 1993 award-winning Pacifica Radio program "A Tribute To Audre Lorde" and has also found time to cut television and radio commercials for Levis, PermaSoft, and the California Lottery, and sit on the 1993 and 1994 NEA presenting and commissioning panels. In 1996 she created the oral history project, "Keep Them With Us" which was based upon interviews with elderly African-Americans to document traditional African-American song.

An important step in Tillery's development as a "self-taught musicologist" was her involvement as an original member of Voicestra. "Each of us was able to find our real essence as singers," she says of her work in the acclaimed choir directed by Bobby McFerrin. "Singing a cappella makes you so vulnerable there's nothing to hide behind. We focused on all the aspects of vocal development - pitch, tonal quality, phrasing, timing, dynamics. That's what Bobby taught us."

An articulate and provocative speaker, Linda has performed for, and given lecture-demonstrations for the Center for Christian Studies' in Toronto, Canada, the New Spirituals Project in Oakland, CA and Cincinnati, OH, Santa Clara University, St. Mary's College in Moraga, CA and Oakland University in Detroit, MI.

And now, singing her way from young-girl rock/pop singer, queen mother of the women's circuit, riffer, Motown seducer, and disciple of the groove, Linda Tillery has metamorphosed into the diva of the African Diaspora in song. She shares with us the historic beginnings of the African-American renaissance in music, telling the story through slave and play songs, hollers, moans, and spirituals.

Melanie DeMore was born to parents who founded one of the first black theatre groups in  Alaska. After majoring in Music at Incamnate Word University in San Antonio, Texas she diversified her career as a studio musician, theater performer and songwriter. As a solo artist she has toured extensively throughout the United States, Canada and Cuba, singing at festivals, universities and concert halls. She has two solo recordings, the most recent "Share My Song" on Redwood Records. DeMore has shared the stage with Laura Nyro, Pete Seeger, Angela Davis, Sweet Honey in the Rock and many others. She has also been a California Arts Council Artist in Residence and serves on the conducting staff of the Oakland Youth Chorus. She teaches her Sound Awareness Program in prisons, schools and youth organizations, and is a featured performer and lecturer for Speak Out: The Institute for Social & Cultural Change.

Rhonda Benin has a voice described as sweet, sultry and like caramel sweetened with honey She began her singing career in her hometown of Los Angeles as a 16-year-old member of the jazz vocal trio, The Sound of Soul. After graduating from college, she did extensive session work with such artists, producers and songwriters as Paul Jackson, Jr., Norman Conners, Ronnie Laws, Michael Bolton and Holland, Dozier and Holland. She moved to the Bay Area in 1989 and after working with singer Maria Mauldar she continued her career collaborating with Hugh Masekela on music for Dimensions Dance Theater. She has sung jingles for the California Lottery, and has been featured vocalist with Mal Sharp and his Big Money in Jazz Band. In 1995 Rhonda formed her own band, Soulful Stint. 'My band is a funky, jazzy little band, that delivers some of the best in old and new school Rhythm & Blues, with a good solid helping of the blues.

Elouise Burrell brings over 25 years of performance experience in music, theater and dance to this great ensemble. Under the wings of barrelhouse blues piano legend, Robert Shaw, she broke into the Texas's rhythm & blues circuit and sang throughout the southwest for ten years. This culminated in a Texas Music Review tour of Western Europe and the USSR. In addition to performing in film, video and theater and scoring dance-theater and performance art pieces, she serves as lead vocalist, manager and agent for Amandla Poets, her 10-piece South African dance band. Recent recording releases of "Makube Njalo", a collection of African, reggae and pop on her label Scintilla and "A Circle of Women", ancient and contemporary songs and chants on the Music for Little People label, exemplify her passion for the eclectic music of the world. This work or these collaborations has led her to voice, percussion and dance performances in the Echo Canyons of New Mexico, international festivals performing choreographed high energy Mbaqanga-jive sounds of South Africa, and Motown and R&B revues. Burrell has shared the stage with the Neville Brothers, Etta James, Third World, McCoy Tyner, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Hugh Masekela, Lucky Dube, Eddy Palmieri, John Handy and many others.

Emma Jean Foster-Fiege was born in Seattle, Washington where she began singing gospels and spirituals at the age of two. She traveled with her family throughout her religious, pentecostal childhood, performing with Andre Crouch, The Disciples, Shirley Ceasar and many other Gospel musicians. After graduating Chief Sealth High School where she was a straight A music student, Emma moved to Minneapolis and eventually began a career in night club singing with Herman Jones and the Ex-citers & Cohesion. With these groups she toured the midwestern states and Canada. In 1979 Emma moved to California where she began session work at Fantasy Records for Harvey Fuqua, Sylvester and Two Tons of Fun. She has also recorded for Narada Michael Walden and Todd Rundgren and was a member of the B Revue Band "Big Bang Beat," singing the hits of Motown and the 60's. Her voice has been compared to that of Aretha Franklin and Whitney Houston. At present she is a featured soloist with the Glide Ensemble at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco where she has been a member since 1980.