Lydia Pense (born Lydia Jane Pense in
San Francisco, California
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
on December 14, 1947)
[
] is an American
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
-
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...
-
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
singer
Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...
who, since 1969, has performed with the band
Cold Blood. Critics have compared her style to powerful singers including
Janis Joplin and
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin ( ; March 25, 1942 – August 16, 2018) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Referred to as the " Queen of Soul", she has twice been placed ninth in ''Rolling Stone''s "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". With ...
.
History
Lydia Pense was born in San Francisco on December 14, 1947, and lived there until age 10 until the family moved to
Redwood City, California
Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in Northern California's Bay Area, approximately south of San Francisco, and northwest of San Jose. Redwood City's history spans its earliest inhabitation by the Ohlone people to being a ...
.
At age 14, while attending
Sequoia High School, Pense started singing with a band called ''The Dimensions,'' with Guitarist
Fred Tatman, Larry Hatch and Kerry Yates.
She was a fan of
Brenda Lee
Brenda Mae Tarpley (born December 11, 1944), known professionally as Brenda Lee, is an American singer. Performing rockabilly, pop and country music, she had 47 US chart hits during the 1960s and is ranked fourth in that decade, surpassed onl ...
and was singing her songs, but the band encouraged her to sing R&B in the style of James Brown, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, and Ray Charles.
Janis Joplin had recommended Lydia Pense audition for the band ''Cold Blood'' to music promoter
Bill Graham.
Lydia joined ''Cold Blood'' in 1968 and the band was one of the earliest music groups to be signed by Bill Graham's
Fillmore Records Fillmore may refer to:
Places Canada
* Fillmore, Saskatchewan
* Rural Municipality of Fillmore No. 96, Saskatchewan
United States
* Fillmore, California
* Fillmore District, San Francisco, California
* Fillmore, Louisiana
* Fillmore, Illin ...
.
The band ''Cold Blood'' separated in the late 1970s. Pense suspended her music career in the early 1980s to raise her daughter Danielle, before re-forming the group in 1988.
The band continues to record, tour and perform.
Discography
Their initial four albums, ''Cold Blood'', ''Sisyphus'', ''First Taste of Sin'' (produced by
Donny Hathaway), and ''Thriller'' remain their best known work.
Albums
See also
*
Cold Blood
References
External links
Official site for Lydia Pense and Cold Blood
1947 births
Living people
American dance musicians
American women singers
American rhythm and blues singers
Singers from San Francisco
Jazz musicians from San Francisco
People from Redwood City, California
21st-century American women
{{US-RnB-singer-stub