International, multi-genre Recording Artist,
Performer, Session Singer, Songwriter, Actor, Director, Arts Educator who has brought her signature style
blend of blues, jazz, R&B and pop to audiences
from around the world.
She has recorded or performed with the likes of
Melissa Manchester, Grammy nominated blues
artist, Sugar Ray, Grammy nominated artist
Gregg Young in the 2nd Street band, for a
variety of corporate including ….. and with
internationally renowned bands across
like….the world.
Viva is currently working on a country soul EP
in the studio, and releasing her second single
off the EP "Mopin" this year. You can find out
more about Viva Vinson and her illustrious
career at
www.vivavinson.com

Cecilia Blackwell grew up in Southern California. She was raised by her former doo-wop singer, television soundman and DJ dad. His vast musical selections including soul, new wave, country, rock, blues and pop influenced Celly's style and musical approach. Celly describes her music as Retro-R&B-Pop or using her favorite term, "R&B'Everything." She's collaborated with DJ Smash Hunter, DJ Spinna, Buscrates, Maya Azucena, Alice Smith amongst others, and has toured the East Coast performing background vocals for local bands. She's a singer, songwriter, master vocal arranger due in part to having perfect hearing, and has several projects in the works including her first album, "Sugar." In 2014 Celly released a mixtape - taking classic rap tracks and transforming them into R&B jams - called "Homage." She currently writes songs for sync and radio.

Based in Los Angeles. Eclectic Electronic Musician. Geek. Gamer. Technologist. When I'm not making music, I work making things look good in movies and TV shows (you have watched most of them)

Americana duo Joselyn & Don's album "Seeds & Bones." New music coming in 2024! Finding ourselves on the "Lost & Found Highway."

1/2 of Petty Chavez, acoustic duo.
1/2 of the Sisters of Perpetual Heartache (SOPH), female alt-country duo.

Rene Lopez has spent more than three decades carving out a lane all his own—an ever-evolving blend of outlaw country swagger, New York soul grit, and the restless fire of a lifelong songwriter who can’t help but tell the truth. Born and raised between the Bronx and Manhattan, and carrying the musical lineage of his father, the legendary trumpet player Rene Lopez Sr. (Ray Barretto, Tipica 73), Lopez grew up surrounded by rhythm, melody, and the sense that music wasn’t just a career path—it was a calling.

His own journey began in the early 1990s with The Authority, a hard-grooving, genre-bending band that became a fixture in New York’s explosive downtown scene. At a time when Times Square was still wild and the city’s clubs pulsed with every shade of rock, funk, and hip-hop, The Authority held their own. They played wherever the electricity of the night took them—Wetlands, CBGB, Nightingales, countless tri-state gigs—earning a reputation for high-energy shows and raw musicianship. Photographer Steve Eichner captured the band with the World Trade Center looming behind them, a time-stamped reminder of a New York that’s long gone but still alive in Lopez’s bones.

When The Authority’s run came to an end, Lopez carried that momentum forward. He stepped into a solo career that refused to sit still, diving into funk, soul, Latin rhythms, singer-songwriter intimacy, and the kind of Americana that somehow feels like both Manhattan and Nashville at once. Over the years, he released ten solo albums, toured relentlessly, collaborated with a wide circle of musicians, and became known for a sound that was unmistakably his—rhythmic, honest, and built on stories only a lifelong New Yorker could tell.

Now, in 2025, Lopez returns with A New York Lie, his eleventh solo album and the most personal of his career. Produced by Patrick Sansone of Wilco and recorded with a trusted circle of musicians, the record is a cinematic love letter and reckoning—part diary, part confession, part survival anthem. Lopez writes about memory, loss, fatherhood, resilience, and a city that gives and takes in equal measure. Songs like “Please Don’t Give Up,” “That’s The Truth,” and the title track reach back across decades of lived experience: growing up in the Bronx, grinding through the 90s NYC music scene, raising kids, getting knocked down, getting up again, and trying—always—to find grace in it all.

More than three decades after The Authority first plugged in, René Lopez is still driven by the same instinct that started it all: to make music that feels real. His voice carries the weight of memory, his songs blur the line between confession and celebration, and his performances—whether in a Brooklyn barroom or on a festival stage—prove that he’s still chasing the same spark he felt in 1990.

A storyteller. A survivor. A New Yorker through and through. And a musician who keeps finding new ways to tell the truth.

Pi's new album, Soldier On has been in the AMA Chart top 50 for the last 10 weeks! (April 10, 2024).
Singer songwriter Pi Jacobs draws inspiration from her unconventional upbringing in “The Land of Weed and Wine” aka. Northern California!  She began singing at age 3 and playing guitar at age 11. She signed her first record deal in 2001 and began the process of growing into the singer-songwriter she is today by releasing nine studio albums, via four different record labels. She is currently signed to LA’s Blackbird Record Label, and her next album, “Soldier On” will be out in April 2024. Produced by Eric Corne (John Mayall,), The album features Pi’s long-time collaborators Buch Norton (Lucinda Williams,Tracy Chapman) and Zack and Adam Hall (Billy Ray Cyrus).  
 
Live, Pi’s style blends roots-rock swagger and storytelling soul, that has drawn comparisons to Tom Waits, Dolly Parton, and Lucinda Williams.  
Armed with an old Gibson guitar, her “sultry” (Claremont Courier) and “explosive” (Glide) voice, and a homemade stomp box, she creates a show that is a “mesmerizing” (Americana Highways).
In the words of San Luis Obispo’s New Times, “Jacobs' can be funny, poignant, and irreverent, but always personal. She might not heal you, but you'll forget your problems for a few hours” .
 
Pi’s music has been heard on NPR, DittyTV, Austin Music TV, Americana Highways, American Songwriter Magazine, and regularly on radio tastemakers KCSN (LA) WMOT (Nashville) and WFUV (NYC) , as well as stations across the nation.  Her upcoming album Soldier On, debuted its first single at #44 on the Americana Music Chart.

celiachavez is following