Deborah Coleman - Takin' A Stand (1994), I Can't Lose (1997)

→ Thanks to L.C.

From Van Halen to Billie Holiday

Deborah Coleman died much too early, in 2018, at age 61, leaving us wondering how high her career would have taken her.

She was born in 1956 in Portsmouth, Virginia, in a very musical family : her father, a Marine, played piano, her brothers and sister, guitar and/or keyboards. She started guitar at eight, later changing to bass and playing in local R'n'B and rock bands in her mid-teens, before switching back to guitar after discovering Hendrix, Cream or Led Zeppelin. But she had to reach 19 years old to fall for the blues after hearing John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf at a festival.