Youth in Wisconsin

Nelson was born and grew up in Madison, Wisconsin

Madison, Wisconsin

Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....

. There she first learned about R&B music from WLAC radio in Nashville

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

. In her teens, Nelson sang folk music in coffeehouses and with a group called The Fuller's Wood Singers and was lead singer in a band called The Fabulous Imitations.

Early recording career

In 1964, Nelson recorded an album released on Prestige Records. It featured blues harmonica player Charlie Musselwhite

Charlie Musselwhite

Charlie Musselwhite is an American electric blues harmonica player and bandleader, one of the non-black bluesmen who came to prominence in the early 1960s, along with Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield. Though he has often been identified as a "white bluesman", he claims Native American heritage...

 among her backup band. In Chicago, where the album was recorded, Nelson met and learned from artists such as Muddy Waters

Muddy Waters

McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...

, Howlin' Wolf

Howlin' Wolf

Chester Arthur Burnett , known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player....

, and Otis Spann

Otis Spann

Otis Spann was an American blues musician, who many consider the leading postwar Chicago blues pianist.-Career:Born in Jackson, Mississippi, United States, Spann became known for his distinct piano style....

.

Nelson moved to San Francisco

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

 in 1966, where she became part of the music scene there. Her band Mother Earth

Mother Earth (band)

Mother Earth was an American blues rock band from California, fronted by Tracy Nelson.Nelson, who hailed from Madison, Wisconsin, began her career as a solo artist, but formed the Mother Earth ensemble after moving to San Francisco...

 played the Fillmore Auditorium

The Fillmore

The Fillmore Auditorium is a historic music venue in San Francisco, California, made famous by Bill Graham. Named for its original location at the intersection of Fillmore Street and Geary Boulevard, it lies on the boundary of the Western Addition and the Pacific Heights neighborhoods.In 1968,...

, sharing bills with the Grateful Dead

Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...

, Jefferson Airplane

Jefferson Airplane

Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....

, Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin

Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...

 and Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...

. It was during this period that Nelson wrote and recorded, with Mother Earth on the album Living with the Animals, her signature song "Down So Low," later covered by Linda Ronstadt

Linda Ronstadt

Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...

, Etta James

Etta James

Etta James is an American blues, soul, rhythm and blues , rock and roll, gospel and jazz singer. In the 1950s and 1960s, she had her biggest success as a blues and R&B singer...

, and Diamanda Galás

Diamanda Galás

Diamanda Galás is an American avant-garde composer, vocalist, pianist, organist, performance artist and painter.Galás has been described as "capable of the most unnerving vocal terror", with her three and a half octave vocal range. She often screams, hisses and growls...

.

Later career

In the late 1960s Nelson relocated to Nashville, where she and Mother Earth

Mother Earth (band)

Mother Earth was an American blues rock band from California, fronted by Tracy Nelson.Nelson, who hailed from Madison, Wisconsin, began her career as a solo artist, but formed the Mother Earth ensemble after moving to San Francisco...

 recorded the album Make A Joyful Noise and the solo effort Tracy Nelson Country. The latter features Nelson's cover of the country classic "Blue, Blue Day". Nelson made a total of six albums with Mother Earth for the Mercury, Reprise, and Columbia labels. She has continued to record as a solo artist, for Atlantic and other labels. In 1974, her duet with Willie Nelson

Willie Nelson

Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...

, "After the Fire is Gone", was nominated for a Grammy Award

Grammy Award

A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

.

After a lengthy hiatus from recording in the 1980s, Nelson released several albums on the independent Rounder Records

Rounder Records

Rounder Records, originally of Cambridge, Massachusetts, but now based in Burlington, Massachusetts, is a record label founded in 1970 by Ken Irwin, Bill Nowlin and Marian Leighton-Levy, while all three were still university students...

 label in the 1990s. Her 1998 collaboration with label-mates Marcia Ball

Marcia Ball

Marcia Ball is an American blues singer and pianist, born in Orange, Texas but who grew up in Vinton, Louisiana. She was described in USA Today as "a sensation, saucy singer and superb pianist.....

 and Irma Thomas

Irma Thomas

Irma Thomas is an American Grammy Award-winning soul and rhythm and blues singer from New Orleans. She is known as the "Soul Queen of New Orleans"....

 "Sing It" garnered a second Grammy nomination. During this comeback period she performed on American music television programs such as Sunday Night

Sunday Night

Sunday Night, later named Michelob Presents Night Music, was a late-night television show which aired for two seasons between 1988 and 1990. The show featured performers in a wide variety of musical genres but was particularly known as a showcase for jazz and electric music. It was hosted by Jools...

 and Austin City Limits.

Since the early 2000s, Nelson has recorded for various independent record label

Independent record label

An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...

s. She released her first in concert album "Live From Cell Block D" in 2004. Other projects include a collaboration with blues-rock veterans Nick Gravenites

Nick Gravenites

Nicholas George Gravenites , with stage names like Nick "The Greek" Gravenites and Gravy, is a blues, rock and folk singer–songwriter, and is best known for his work with Janis Joplin, Mike Bloomfield and several influential bands and names of the generation springing from the 1960s and 1970s...

, Harvey Mandel

Harvey Mandel

Harvey Mandel is an American guitarist known for his innovative approach to electric guitar playing. A professional at twenty, he played with Charlie Musselwhite, Canned Heat, The Rolling Stones, and John Mayall before starting a solo career...

, Corky Siegel

Siegel-Schwall Band

The Siegel–Schwall Band is an American electric blues band from Chicago, Illinois. The band was formed in 1964 by Corky Siegel and Jim Schwall , and still tours occasionally.-History:...

 and Sam Lay

Sam Lay

Sam Lay is an American drummer and vocalist, who has been performing since the late 1950s.-Life and career:...

. Billed as the Chicago Blues Reunion, the group toured major cities in 2005 and 2006.

In 2007, Tracy released "You'll Never Be a Stranger at My Door", her first pure country effort since her 1969 album, "Mother Earth Presents Tracy Nelson Country". "Stranger" included her covers of Johnny Cash's "I Still Miss Someone

I Still Miss Someone

"I Still Miss Someone" is the title of a song written and originally recorded by American country music singer Johnny Cash. He first recorded it in 1958 as the b-side to "Don't Take Your Guns to Town".-History:...

", Jim Reeves' "Four Walls"; the Everly Brothers' "I Wonder If I Care as Much" and a song based on a poem of her own composition, "Salt of the Earth".

External links

• http://www.tracynelson.com Tracy Nelson homepage