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the top part of the stage on a catwalk and sing gospel songs as the acts would change to divert
the attention of the audience from the changing scenery below.

So I was singing these gospel blues classics during this show and at the end of the run, the lead

actor of the show, his name was Ruben Santiago-Hudson, told me that my voice was perfectly
suited for the blues, and he gave me a CD collection called “Men Are Like Street Cars”. It was a
two-disc collection, all-female blues artists from 1928 to 1969. I think it was like 46 tracks, and
I consumed that collection in short
order, and it was transformative. So
Early Times
I went back to the guys, the

remaining members of my band
Cole Connection.

I said, how about we switch things
up and become a blues band? Off the
top of my head, I said, let's call

ourselves Misty Blues. And so about
two months later we started
performing out as Misty Blues and
almost exclusively doing songs from
that CD collection. So we were like
a female blues cover band
[chuckles].

BiTS: I guess when you were at
college, it was not your intention to
be a musician. What did you intend
to do?

GC: No, no. I don't know what I

intended to do. I was a little lost,
quite frankly. I was an English major, so when I graduated, I became a teacher’s aide in a school
that wasn't too far from where I went to college, which was Williams College.

BiTS: Tell me something about how Misty Blues has developed over the years. I gather that,
for instance, your son plays with the band now. Is that right?

GC: That is correct. I mean, he's been doing some cameo appearances with the band ever since
he was nine [laughs], but after the pandemic, he became more and more instrumental, and we

started writing music together.

BiTS: Oh, that's wonderful. Were you badly affected by the pandemic? Were there lots of gigs
cancelled and that sort of thing?

GC: Oh my gosh, everything was cancelled [laughs], but we were not defeated. We performed
every week. We did a live stream show every week. So from the first show that was cancelled

on us, my home has an attic rehearsal space, and I told the band let's go up to the attic and let's
put on this Facebook live thing and cover our gig. And I thought that was going to happen maybe
once or twice, and then it was like 50-some odd weeks of doing that [chuckling], but we never
stopped performing.