Roberta Donnay is an American jazz singer, musician, composer, and producer. She has released nine studio albums and shared the stage with such artists as

Booker T. Jones Booker Taliaferro Jones Jr. (born November 12, 1944) is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and arranger, best known as the frontman of the band Booker T. & the M.G.'s. He has also worked in the studios with many well-known artis ...

Dr. John Malcolm John Rebennack Jr. (November 20, 1941 – June 6, 2019), better known by his stage name Dr. John, was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. His music combined New Orleans blues, jazz, R&B, soul and funk. Active as a session mus ...

David Grisman David Jay Grisman (born March 23, 1945) is an American mandolinist. His music combines bluegrass, folk, and jazz in a genre he calls "Dawg music". He founded the record label Acoustic Disc, which issues his recordings and those of other acousti ...

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Elvis Costello Declan Patrick MacManus (born 25 August 1954), known professionally as Elvis Costello, is an English singer, songwriter, record producer, author and television host. According to ''Rolling Stone'', Costello "reinvigorated the literate, lyrical ...

Leon Russell Leon Russell (born Claude Russell Bridges; April 2, 1942 – November 13, 2016) was an American musician and songwriter who was involved with numerous bestselling records during his 60-year career that spanned multiple genres, including rock a ...

, Michael McDonald,

Neil Young Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, forming the folk rock group Buffalo Springfield. Since the begi ...

, and

Maria Muldaur Maria Muldaur (born Maria Grazia Rosa Domenica D'Amato; September 12, 1942) is an American folk and blues singer who was part of the American folk music revival in the early 1960s. She recorded the 1973 hit song " Midnight at the Oasis" and h ...

. She toured extensively with

Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks Daniel Ivan Hicks (December 9, 1941 – February 6, 2016) was an American singer-songwriter and musician, and the leader of Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks. His idiosyncratic style combined elements of cowboy folk, jazz, country, swing, blueg ...

as a ''Lickette'', providing vocals and percussion. She has performed at the

Monterey Jazz Festival The Monterey Jazz Festival is an annual music festival that takes place in Monterey, California, United States. It debuted on October 3, 1958, championed by Dave Brubeck and co-founded by jazz and popular music critic Ralph J. Gleason and jazz ...

SXSW South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

, the

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, and other venues across the USA. Her songs have been featured on ''

The O.C. ''The O.C. '' is an American teen drama television series created by Josh Schwartz that originally aired on Fox in the United States from August 5, 2003, to February 22, 2007, with a total of four seasons consisting of 92 episodes. The serie ...

'', '' Riverdale'', ''

Nash Bridges ''Nash Bridges'' is an American police procedural television series created by Carlton Cuse. The show stars Don Johnson and Cheech Marin as two Inspectors with the San Francisco Police Department's Special Investigations Unit (SIU). The seri ...

'', ''

Numb3rs ''Numbers'' (stylized as ''NUMB3RS'') is an American crime drama television series that originally aired on CBS from January 23, 2005, to March 12, 2010, with a total of six seasons consisting of 118 episodes. The series was created by Nico ...

'', and ''

PAN AM Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and more commonly known as Pan Am, was an airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States for ...

'', among others. Her song, ''One World,'' was the theme for the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

50th Anniversary and

World AIDS Day World AIDS Day, designated on 1 December every year since 1988, is an international day dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection and mourning those who have died of the disease. The acquired immu ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

and earned her an

ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadc ...

''Composer Award''.

Career

Donnay grew up in Washington, D.C., and learned to sing from the radio. Jazz being her first love, she was influenced at an early age by

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...

Billie Holiday Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday made significant contributions to jazz music and pop ...

Ella Fitzgerald Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April25, 1917June15, 1996) was an American singer, songwriter and composer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phra ...

Mae West Mary Jane "Mae" West (August 17, 1893 – November 22, 1980) was an American actress, singer, comedian, screenwriter, and playwright whose career spanned more than seven decades. Recognized as a prominent sex symbol of her time, she was known ...

, and

Bessie Smith Bessie Smith (April 15, 1892 – September 26, 1937) was an African-American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Empress of the Blues" and formerly Queen of the Blues, she was t ...

. She began singing professionally at 16, wandering Europe with a knapsack and borrowing guitars on-site. After relocating to San Francisco, she sang Dixieland and traditional jazz with "Dick Oxtot's Golden Age Jazz Band" and performed with "Tom Keats & his Tom Kats". Her first album, ''Catch the Wave'', was the first indie CD released in the San Francisco Bay area. Her music has been produced by jazz producer

Orrin Keepnews Orrin Keepnews (March 2, 1923 – March 1, 2015) was an American jazz writer and record producer known for founding Riverside Records and Milestone Records, for freelance work, and for his work at other labels. Biography Early life Keepnews ...

. As a singer and songwriter, Donnay toured the U.S. with her guitar and appeared on various shows. She returned to singing jazz full-time in 2005. She is a practicing Buddhist. She has performed with and opened shows for

Bob Dorough Robert Lrod Dorough (December 12, 1923 – April 23, 2018) was an American bebop and cool jazz vocalist, pianist, and composer. He became famous as the composer and performer of songs in the TV series ''Schoolhouse Rock!'', as well as for his wor ...

, Dave Ellis,

Junior Brown Jamieson "Junior" Brown (born June 12, 1952) is an American country guitarist and singer. He has released twelve studio albums in his career, and has charted twice on the ''Billboard'' country singles charts. Brown's signature instrument is t ...

Tommy Castro Tommy Castro (born April 15, 1955) is an American blues, R&B, and rock guitarist and singer. He has been recording since the mid-1990s. His music has taken him from local stages to national and international touring. His popularity was marked ...

Peter Coyote Peter Coyote (born Robert Peter Cohon; October 10, 1941) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, author, and narrator of films, theater, television, and audiobooks. He worked on films, such as ''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' (1982), '' C ...

Woody Harrelson Woodrow Tracy Harrelson (born July 23, 1961) is an American actor. He first became known for his role as bartender Woody Boyd on the NBC sitcom ''Cheers'' (1985–1993), for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in ...

Ernestine Anderson Ernestine Anderson (November 11, 1928 – March 10, 2016) was an American jazz and blues singer. In a career spanning more than six decades, she recorded over 30 albums. She was nominated four times for a Grammy Award. She sang at Carnegie Hall, ...

Dan Fogelberg Daniel Grayling Fogelberg (August 13, 1951 – December 16, 2007) was an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist widely known for his 1970s and 1980s soft rock hits, including " Longer" (1979), " Same Old Lang Syne" (1981), and " ...

Johnny Lange John George Lange (August 15, 1905 – January 6, 2006) was an American songwriter, working mostly in the motion picture industry. His chief musical collaborators were Archie Gottler and Jack Meskill. Biography Lange was born in Philadelphia ...

Huey Lewis Hugh Anthony Cregg III (born July 5, 1950), known professionally as Huey Lewis, is an American actor and former singer-songwriter. Lewis sang lead and played harmonica for his band, Huey Lewis and the News, until being forced into retirement due ...

Eddie Money Edward Joseph Money ( Mahoney; March 21, 1949September 13, 2019) was an American singer and songwriter who, in the 1970s and 1980s, had eleven Top 40 songs, including " Baby Hold On", " Two Tickets to Paradise", " Think I'm in Love", " Shakin' ...

Joe Sample Joseph Leslie Sample (February 1, 1939 – September 12, 2014) was an American jazz keyboardist and composer. He was one of the founding members of The Jazz Crusaders in 1960, whose name was shortened to "The Crusaders" in 1971. He remained a p ...

Lenny Williams Leonard Charles Williams (born February 16, 1945)"Biography by Alex Henderson"
AllMus ...

Mitch Woods Mitch Woods (born April 3, 1951, Brooklyn, New York) is an American modern day boogie-woogie, jump blues and jazz pianist and singer. Since the early 1980s he has been touring and recording with his band, the Rocket 88s. Woods calls his music, ...

, and

Tuck & Patti Tuck & Patti are an American jazz duo consisting of guitarist William Charles "Tuck" Andress (born October 28, 1952, in Tulsa, Oklahoma) and singer Patricia "Patti" Cathcart Andress (born October 4, 1949, in San Francisco). Music career Guitaris ...

, among others. Donnay has released ten studio albums, three of which were recorded as ''Roberta Donnay & the Prohibition Mob Band''. ''Bathtub Gin'' was named ''One of the Best Albums'' of 2015 by

DownBeat ''DownBeat'' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm that it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1 ...

Magazine. She formed the music group, ''Roberta Donnay & the Rhythm'' in the late 1980s and they performed together until the early 1990s. In 1999, Donnay signed a publishing deal with ''Heavy Hitters Music'' who placed her songs in such TV shows as, ''

The Young and the Restless ''The Young and the Restless'' (often abbreviated as ''Y&R'') is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. The show is set in the fictional Genoa City (named after the real-life Genoa City, Wiscon ...

'', ''

One Life to Live ''One Life to Live'' (often abbreviated as ''OLTL'') is an American soap opera broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company, ABC television network for more than 43 years, from July 15, 1968, to January 13, 2012, and then on the internet as ...

'', ''

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'', and '' That's Life''. Her songs have also been featured on ''

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'', ''

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'', ''

'', and '' That's Life''. In 2000, Donnay founded, ''DivaBands'' (inspired by the ''

Lilith Fair Lilith Fair was a concert tour and travelling music festival, founded by Canadian musician Sarah McLachlan, Nettwerk Music Group's Dan Fraser and Terry McBride (CEO), Terry McBride, and New York talent agent Marty Diamond. It took place during ...

''), a line-up of various female singer-songwriters based in the San Francisco Bay Area, whom Donnay also performed with. DivaBands' first gig was a benefit concert at the Red Devil Lounge in San Francisco which had such a large turnout that the club owner suggested she book another show at one of his other clubs. DivaBands garnered such a successful following in California that Donnay organized a national tour performing in

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

, and

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

. Her song, "One World," became a theme for the

50th Anniversary and was performed on 5 continents as a world peace anthem. It was also chosen as the theme for

in 2003.

Film and television music

* 2005 -

- ''No Easy Way to Say Goodbye'' * 2006 -

- ''No Easy Way to Say Goodbye'' * 2011 - Journey of the Universe (music supervisor) * 2012 -

- ''Something Happened Last Night'' * 2014 - What's a Girl to Do - Actress, Script, Music, Executive Producer * 2014 - Pie Lady of Pie Town - ''Call Me the Breeze'' * 2015 -

- ''Something I Was Unprepared For'' * 2019 - Riverdale - ''No Easy Way to Say Goodbye'' * 2021 - The Next Unicorn - ''No Easy Way to Say Goodbye''

Discography

* ''Catch the Wave'' (Heartfeather Music/Rainforest, 1989) * ''Soul Reverse'' (Rainforest, 1998) * ''Bohemian'' (Rainforest, 2001) * ''Back Before the Why'' (Rainforest, 2005) * ''What's Your Story'' (Pacific Coast Jazz, 2008) * ''A Little Sugar'' ( Motéma, 2012) * ''Bathtub Gin'' (Motéma, 2015) * ''My Heart Belongs to Satchmo'' (Blujazz, 2018) * ''Baby, It's Cold Outside'' (single)

& Roberta Donnay (Circumstantial Productions, 2018) * ''Blossom-ing!'' (Village Jazz Cafe, 2022)

As guest

* ''Jump For Joy'',

and His Rocket, 2001 * '' Tangled Tales'',

(2009) * ''Crazy for Christmas'',

(2010) * ''Live at Davies Hall'',

(2012) * ''Jeff Oster Live!'',

Jeff Oster Jeff Oster is a Grammy-nominated American musician who specializes in trumpet and flugelhorn in the New Age music genre. He is a member of the four-piece band Flow. Oster's style has been described as "Miles Davis meets Pink Floyd." He is a thre ...

, (2016)

References

External links

Official site
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Donnay, Roberta Living people 1966 births Singers from Washington, D.C. American jazz singers American women jazz singers American Buddhists 21st-century American women Motéma Music artists