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heather ellison - lead vocals

Heather Ellison - Certain people, like certain songs, are easily forgotten. But others, like timeless melodies, stay in your memory for a lifetime. You's need to suffer a massive head injury to forget 20-year-old Heather Marie Ellison. Spotlights were invented for people like her. Equal parts charm, beauty and talent, this gum-chewing, platinum blonde with a laugh light and giddy as champagne bubbles lingers in your mind like a classic songs she loves to sing. Blessed with that rare quality of being able to spread happiness to all she comes in contact with, Heather also has the burning desire to entertain. So much the better: if only all of us were as well suited to follow our dreams. Heather is most often seen as a featured canary in Sonoma County's leading swing band The Savoy Swingers. As one half of the vocal duo affectionately known as the Pin-Ups ( the other half being Emily Schmidt), Heather lends her powerful pipes and theatrical flair to the band, helping recreate the glamour and ambience of the 1940's. She is also a backup singer for the Johnny Otis Show, lending her voice to the subtle syncopations of R&B music.

"There's nothing better than to make people dance." --Heather Ellison, quoted in the Press Democrat, 3/29/98

Heather has wanted to be a singer practically from the day she spoke her first word. "It's a natural drug," she says. "It's what keeps me going. It sounds like a cliche, but it's true: when I'm sad I'll sing a song, and I'll feel better. "When I was a baby," she adds matter-of-factly," in order to go to sleep my dad had to turn on the radio." Heather began her professional singing career at age 16 with a country western band, Country Express. Then moved on to soul. Today her specialty is full-on-retro. Why does she like old music? "Because it's pure," says Heather. "It has quality. And even if it's a simple song about love, it was more true because their hopes and dreams of love back then are different from ours. "The music was happy back then, " she continues. "Through the Depression and World War II, instead of giving up, out of these hard times they produced incredible stuff." And just as America's most troubled times produced America's most beloved music, Heather looks to singing as an outlet for her own frustrations, heartaches and dreams that don't come true. Life may be a struggle, philosophy have told us, but Art with a capital A emerges as the antidote for the coarseness of the world and injustices of fate.

"You can listen to (an old swing song) and forget your troubles. It's uplifting, instead of 'I hate the world." --Heather Ellison, quoted in the Independent,12/31/97

"When I'm singing and I see that people are happy or are dancing," declares Heather with her ubiquitous smile, "that makes me feel good, that this is the gift God gave me. And I'm so lucky to be able to use it as I do."

With that inexhaustible supply of energy that characterizes the young and ambitious, Heather puts 110% into all aspects of her show, from managing and promoting to giving high-octane performances that get the entire crowd jumpin' and jivin'.

--Christain M. Chensvold