Vocalist, composer, producer, and pianist who has been nominated for three GRAMMY Awards and won one and just released her fourteenth album on August 7, titled, “A Grand Memoir.” That same day she released a book called, “Put Your Dress Down and Sing: A Memoir.” The projects are being entered into these categories for the upcoming GRAMMYs: Best Audiobook, Narration, and Storytelling and Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album. Her career includes appearances in the “Sister Act” films alongside Whoopi Goldberg, a featured soprano solo in “Yanni Live at the Acropolis,” collaborations with artists including Pink Floyd and Paul McCartney, and contributions to more than 1,000 recordings spanning film, television, albums, and commercials.
“I care for a, or I say babysit, for a 1926 – so as of 2026, that piano is now officially a hundred years old – a century old piano. Golden Era Steinway, Model L Grand Piano… I think I’ve had it for close to 15 years.”
“The way I write my songs, because I'm primarily a singer, the songs are very melodic. In other words, a singer could kind of sing the melodies. They're very melodic.”
“I have a Baldwin grand here in my studio, guesthouse studio, which was my piano since I was 20 years old.”
“We had it done in two hours… all 10 songs in two hours… I wanted it to feel like a live recording… I said, no, I really want this to sound as personal and (like) a live recording as possible.”
“With my singing also, I was always kind of a first take kind of gal. I come in prepared and the spontaneity and the energy of the moment, I always got in the first take, second if you wanted another one to compare. But for me, I'm just kind of that, I love the spontaneity, the energy, the anticipation of what we're going to play.”
“I've recorded as a backup singer on several albums for artists that wanted to do a live recording, and it was a live recording. There was no going back to fix anything. And I remember those sessions were very thrilling. It was exciting to do it. Everybody had their A game on. Nobody could mess up, and everybody had that energy of ‘We're live’!”
“It went POP and it broke the tip bone and the tendon popped off like that. And so, the next day I had to have reconstruction surgery on my hand. Fortunately, the bone tip was still attached to the tendon, so it only got as far as the base of the finger. The doctor said, ‘You're lucky because the next place it would have gotten was all the way up at your shoulder and we would have had to open up the whole arm’ ... So fortunately, it was a hundred stitches in the finger, but it's permanently bent… it took five years for me to have use of the hand and then after that to retrain myself on the right hand.”
“It's interesting when you have to recreate your whole entire life in chronological order and you get to go through all those experiences of your life, good, bad, and otherwise.”
“I don't recommend everyone write their whole entire life, but even the thought of having to bring all that up and turn it into words and to allow yourself to be that vulnerable and to share all the intimate stories and then you have to go through that again because, in our lives, a lot of this stuff, we processed it back then, and oh God, now I gotta go deal with it again.”
“It's a matter of discipline. It's a matter of a conscious choice. Do you want this to work as soon as possible or not? Do you want to wallow in the sadness of all of it? Sure. I know how to do that like everybody does, but I'm not going to allow myself to do that.”
“In the land of psychology, in the land of how our brains and emotions work, if we want to change our feelings, you have to take an action. It is by taking the action that your brain starts going in the right direction and it gives you more hope and courage to get out of your funk and to achieve the goals that need to be achieved.”
“I thought, ‘Man, someday I’d loved to sing with Pink Floyd.’ And of course, my dream came true. I did get to sing with Pink Floyd, on A Momentary Lapse of Reason album.”
“The idea of I get to work on a major motion picture with Whoopi Goldberg, and my role in it, what I was going to be doing and the opportunities that would come from it, because I was still working within music, it wasn't just an acting role.”
“Le Petit Carrousel”
“Love and Devotion”