Barbara Vulso was born on a sunny Wednesday of July at 12,40 p.m. in a windy sea town named Genoa, in Italy. Under the sign of the Cancer, with the moon in Aries, her rising sign is Virgo.
When she was nine y.o.
She was deeply moved by a gospel performance of Mahalia Jackson from movie "Imitation of Life". She started singing with the church choir but, that's how weird life can be, she was told that her voice was too loud to sing in a choir. But those words didn't stop her at all and when she was sixteen she started to sing with a band named
"PORCI COMODI".
In 1992 she spent 4 months in Los Angeles to find her way in music. In 1993 she recorded as
Barbara Williams a dance hit single
"Get the best of my love" with the
EMI label. Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklyn, Billie Holliday and all the black music queens are her sources of inspiration and a friend of her (there's always one, thanks gods) pushed her toward jazz and blues and so she opened the concert of the jazz singer
Adrianne West in Bordighera in 1994. So the history's been made and she becomes a blues woman.
After a while, one of the most important Italian blues band, the
"BIG FAT MAMA", asked her to become the lead singer. With this band she started to travel around and to earn experience in singing and performing in front of thousand of people and in 1995 with new mixture sound of Blues, Rhythm'n blues, Soul and Jazz the band turn its name in The MAMA'S PIT Blues Band.
This popular Italian band played at "Arenzano Blues '95" with
Sonny Rhodes and Beverly Watson. In '96 they closed the "Bordighera Jazz'n Blues Festival" and played again at "Arenzano Blues'96" with
Phillip Walker. In the same year the band was at "Sanremo Blues Festival" with
Lucky Peterson and
Clarence Gatemouth Brown. At "Sori Jazz and Blues" they opened for Joe Louis Walker and The Platters. At "Castel San Pietro Festival" they started their tour with
Johnny Mars. In the summer '99 they opened the "Tiferno Blues Festival" and the
Kenny Neal and
Art Garfunkel concerts at the "Sanremo Immagine Jazz & Blues". With this band Barbara played at "Torrita Blues", "Poggio Murella", "Narcao Blues Festival" and many more. In 1997 James Thompson (permanent saxophone player of the Zucchero's band) contributes to the first CD
"MAMA'S PIT". Another old friend came to play in the recordings,
Johnny Mars.
In 2002 they realised a new cd with the
Comet Records, "RUSH HOURS", a live concert recorded in Switzerland. In 2004 Barbara and the Mama's Pit were the only Italian band recording two songs ("Crosstown Traffic" and "Manic Depression") in
VOODOO CROSSING, a tribute to Jimi Hendrix, with such musicians as
Steve Lukather,
Robben Ford,
Hiram Bullock and
Scott Finch.
In 2005 Barbara performed as Janis Joplin in a Tribute Show at Naima Club (Forli, Italy) where she sang "Little girl blue", "Summertime" and "Ball and Chain".
Through the years she recorded with
EMI,
SONY MUSIC,
COMET RECORDS,
HORIZON.
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