Lydia Pense is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

-soul

Soul music

Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...

-jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 singer who since 1969 has performed with the band Cold Blood

Cold Blood

Cold Blood is a long-standing soul-rock-jazz band founded by Larry Field in 1968 and originally based in the San Francisco East Bay area. They have also gone by the name Lydia Pense and Cold Blood due to the popularity of their lead singer, Lydia Pense....

. Her style has been compared to powerful singers including Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin

Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...

 (who recommended the band to Bill Graham

Bill Graham (promoter)

Bill Graham was an American impresario and rock concert promoter from the 1960s until his death.-Early life:...

 for their first audition), Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...

 and Teena Marie

Teena Marie

Mary Christine Brockert, better known by her stage name Teena Marie, was an American singer, songwriter and producer...

.

Pense's mother, the former Miss Ramos, was born in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, while her father came from Nebraska

Nebraska

Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....

, United States. While attending Sequoia High School

Sequoia High School (Redwood City, California)

Sequoia High School is a high school in downtown Redwood City, California, United States. Established in 1895, it is the oldest high school in the San Francisco Bay Area between San Francisco and San Jose. It was founded as a preparatory school for Stanford University...

 in Redwood City

Redwood City, California

Redwood City is a California charter city located on the San Francisco Peninsula in Northern California, approximately 27 miles south of San Francisco, and 24 miles north of San Jose. Redwood City's history spans from its earliest inhabitation by the Ohlone people, to its tradition as a port for...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 at the age of 16, Pense started singing with a band called The Dimensions, with Guitarist Paul C Saenz. They initially played Big Band

Big band

A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...

 songs, but she soon was attracted to the music of Ray Charles

Ray Charles

Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...

 and Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry

Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...

.

Lydia joined Cold Blood in 1968.

Their initial four albums, Cold Blood, Sisyphus, First Taste of Sin (produced by Donny Hathaway

Donny Hathaway

Donny Edward Hathaway was an American soul singer-songwriter and musician. Hathaway contracted with Atlantic Records in 1969 and with his first single for the Atco label, "The Ghetto, Part I" in early 1970, Rolling Stone magazine "marked him as a major new force in soul music."His collaborations...

), and Thriller remain their best known work. The band continues to record and perform today. The band separated in the late 1970s and Pense suspended her career in the 1980s to raise her daughter before re-forming the group.

Albums

• Cold Blood (1969)
• Sisyphus (1971)
• First Taste of Sin (1972)
• Thriller (1973)
• Lydia (1974)
• The Best of Cold Blood (1975)
• Lydia Pense & Cold Blood (1976)
• Vintage Blood: Live! 1973 (live album), 2001
• Transfusion (2005)
• Lydia Pense & Cold Blood:Live Blood "Live Album"(2008)

External links

• Official site for Lydia Pense and Cold Blood