Marcia Ball at Kuumbwa Jazz Center

Born in Orange, Texas to a family whose female members all played piano, Marcia Ball grew up in the small town of Vinton, Louisiana, right across the Texas state line. She began taking piano lessons at age five—playing old Tin Pan Alley tunes from her grandmother’s record collection— but at age thirteen she discovered the power of soul music. Her future as a musician was sealed one day in 1962, when she sat amazed as Irma Thomas delivered the most spirited performance the young teenager had ever seen. According to Ball, “She just blew me away; she caught me totally unaware. Once I started my own band, the first stuff I was doing was Irma’s.” Ball’s latest album, Tattooed Lady & The Alligator Man, showcases her singular gumbo of East Texas blues and Louisiana swamp rock, incorporating that soulful approach to the many musical sounds of the Gulf Coast; a flavor that is always with Ball and her band...

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Born in Orange, Texas to a family whose female members all played piano, Marcia Ball grew up in the small town of Vinton, Louisiana, right across the Texas state line. She began taking piano lessons at age five—playing old Tin Pan Alley tunes from her grandmother’s record collection— but at age thirteen she discovered the power of soul music. Her future as a musician was sealed one day in 1962, when she sat amazed as Irma Thomas delivered the most spirited performance the young teenager had ever seen. According to Ball, “She just blew me away; she caught me totally unaware. Once I started my own band, the first stuff I was doing was Irma’s.” Ball’s latest album, Tattooed Lady & The Alligator Man, showcases her singular gumbo of East Texas blues and Louisiana swamp rock, incorporating that soulful approach to the many musical sounds of the Gulf Coast; a flavor that is always with Ball and her band. In her own words, “when I bring my band to Manhattan or Santa Cruz or Seattle or Chicago, it’s still us, and we’re taking our sensibility with us.”

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