Actually, there was another band where we were three girls, around '84 when I met John Zorn, called Sunset Chorus. It was just bass and drums and guitar- we didn't make any records but we played a lot of different clubs in New York.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Around New York, our group had become known as 'Dee Dee and her girls' because we were used on everything, so going out on a solo career wasn't as much a big deal to me.
I'd played in about four or five bands before we started up, only a couple of which did club dates.
My mother was a singer, and both of her sisters were singers. There was always music around.
I was down with Lucinda Williams and Mary Chapin-Carpenter. We did an acoustic tour, just the three of us, three chicks and three guitars.
I met the Santana band when I was 14. By the time I was 15, I was a member of the band.
My mom actually had a band called Six Pack - even though there were seven of them - who went around Chicago performing popular songs. Her voice was like Gladys Knight mixed with Aretha Franklin.
My dad grew up in Pittsburgh in the '50s, and he used to sing Four Seasons songs on the stoop. He made me listen to Cousin Brucie - the guy who broke the Four Seasons on the radio. So I knew all of their songs, but I didn't know they were all by the same group.
There weren't a lot of girl singers around. Paul McCartney and John Lennon were the guys I looked up to.
My brother had a big band in high school; after that we continued to play together, eventually forming a group called the Jazz Brothers, that recorded for Riverside Records.
I had different bands. I played with the Acoustic Warriors for the most part, without girl singers. It was the same kind of sound, acoustic guitar, bass, with violin and sometimes accordion, and the guys would sing, that kind of thing.