The members of Ranky Tanky (a Gullah phrase for “get funky”) have achieved many firsts for South Carolina’s West African-rooted Gullah community, earning yet another milestone at the 2019 Grammy® Awards by taking home the Best Regional Roots Album prize for their sophomore release, Good Time. The album, which also hit #1 on Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz Chart, combines songs carried down through generations in the Sea Islands of the Southeastern United States with the band’s own original compositions in the Gullah tradition. Ranky Tanky has established itself as a group of passionate global ambassadors for local culture and community, helping to faithfully preserve the traditions originated by African Americans in the coastal South during slavery. The band has been featured on NPR’s Fresh Air, The Today Show, PBS Newshour and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The band was honored to be featured in President Biden’s inauguration event, We The People. Recently the subject of a 10-page profile in Oxford American’s South Carolina Music Issue, Ranky Tanky was named 2020 Artist of The Year by the Charleston City Paper.

After four decades of featured background singing with icons like Luther Vandross, The Rolling Stones, Chaka Khan, Tina Turner, and Nine Inch Nails, Ms. Lisa Fischer set out to take center stage with her own humble, heartfelt song. The 2013 Best Documentary Oscar winning film “Twenty Feet from Stardom” altered the course of Fischer’s musical journey, telling her story, with clips of her legendary duets with Sting or with Mick Jagger on “Gimme Shelter”, left audiences eager to see and hear more. Fischer took the chance to set out on her own reinventing classic songs with co-conspirators JC Maillard and Grand Baton. Their organic fusion of Caribbean psychedelic soul and jazzy progressive rock ignited Lisa’s flexibility and freedom of expression, awakening her lifelong desire to make music that heals but still rocks the house.

While Fischer’s range is legendary, her greatest gift is the ability to connect, to reach the hearts of her listeners. Raised in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, she emerged from New York’s fervent studio scene in the early 1980s, sang for two decades with legendary vocalist Luther Vandross, and released So Intense, earning her first Best R&B Performance Grammy® with “How Can I Ease the Pain.” She joined the Rolling Stones for their 1989 Steel Wheels Tour, and continued to grace their stage for the next 26 years.