An internationally renowned interpeter of folk country, blues, soul, and gospel, vocalist, pianist and songwriter Tracy Nelson has appeared on nearly 200 recordings. Her debut, Deep Are The Roots was released in 1965. She co-founded and fronted Mother Earth, a blues and roots rock band in 1967. An integral part of the Fillmore scene, they issued four albums beginning with 1968's Living with the Animals until dissolving after 1973's Poor Man's Paradise. She issued an eponymous album in 1974. Sweet Soul Music and Time Is On My Side appeared in 1975 and 1976. Nelson signed to Rounder for 1983's In The Here And Now. 1998's Sing It was a collaboration with Marcia Ball and Irma Thomas. After 2011's Victim Of The Blues, Nelson took a long break from recording. She returned with Life Don't Miss Nobody in 2023.
Born in California but raised in Madison, WI, Nelson began playing music as a student at the University of Wisconsin. Nelson began singing folk and blues at coffeehouses and R&B and rock & roll at parties with a covers band called the Fabulous Imitators. In 1964, she recorded an album for Prestige, Deep Are the Roots, which was produced by Sam Charters. Two years later, Nelson headed to the West Coast, spending time in Los Angeles before settling in San Francisco.
After arriving, she formed the band Mother Earth in 1967, moving the group to Nashville the following year. They won a record deal with Mercury and released Living With The Animals in 1968. It included an appearance by Michael Bloomfield under an assumed name on one track. 1969's Make A Joyful Noise featured Boz Scaggs as a backing vocalist and divided its contents between blues rock and country tunes. Satisfied, their final Mercury date, appeared in 1970. They signed to Reprise for 1971's Bring Me Home. Despite being primarily a blues rock offering, it contained an iconic cover of Steve Young's Americana classic, "Seven Bridges Road." Tracy Nelson / Mother Earth was released in 1972 and included songs by Bobby Charles and John Hiatt. Nelson appeared on their future recordings in gratitude. 1973's Poor Man's Paradise was the group's final album; it was co-billed to the singer and Mother Earth.
Nelson signed a single album solo deal with Atlantic and issued a self-titled offering in 1974. Produced by Bob Johnston, it also featured horn charts by Allen Toussaint. Following a tour, she signed with MCA and released the Johnston-produced Sweet Soul Music in 1975. She teamed with producer Jimmy Bowen and guitarist Larry Carlton for 1976's Time Is On My Side, an album that belonged in the country bins with the recordings of the outlaw generation.
During this period Nelson had a second career as a session singer. She recorded and toured with David Bromberg, Young, Michael Martin Murphey, Earl Scruggs, Bobby Bare and Lee Clayton, among others during the 1970s. In 1978 she issued Homemade Songs, her Flying Fish debut, and followed with the soul / R&B album Come See About Me in 1980.
Nelson spent the remainder of the decade doing session work. She sang on records by Hiatt and Charles, but also Guy Clark, Gary Stewart, Maria Muldaur, and Jonathan Butler to name a few. She signed to Rounder during the early 1990s and released five albums during the decade beginning with In The Here And Now, a collection of sweltering blues and roots standards in 1993. The star-studded I Feel So Good appeared in 1995. 1996 saw the issue of the swinging, Texas roadhouse R&B of Move On. The track "Ladies Man," included vocal support from Muldaur, Phoebe Snow and Bonnie Raitt. Delbert McClinton joined on set opener "Livin' On Love." Nelson's tenure with Rounder ended after 1998's Sing It, a collaboration with pianist/vocalist Marcia Ball and New Orleans-based soul singer Irma Thomas, a joyous collection of blues and R&B, it was nominated for a Grammy Award.
Nelson toured, and resumed her session work with Charles, Muldaur and even Barry White. She issued the raucous Ebony & Ivory in 2001. A collection of raucous R&B, choogling country rock, and gospel ballads. Nelson released it on her own label after, inexplicably, it was rejected by several labels. Live From Cell Block D appeared in 2003. It was recorded in concert in December of 2002 from the stage of the West Tennessee Detention Center in Mason, TN. Raw, immediate and celebratory, it was released by Memphis International. It also included a liner essay by Willie Nelson. She returned to the label for 2007's You'll Never Be a Stranger at My Door. The 11 song set found Nelson delivering the roots country music on a collection of 10 covers and a lone original. She performed songs by, among others, Johnny Cash, Jim Reeves, Don Gibson, Don Everly and Mike Nesmith. She cut the companion Victim of the Blues in 2009, her homage to the blues artists that influenced her including Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Lightnin' Hopkins, Willie Dixon, and Percy Mayfield, and others. After a 2010 fire destroyed her 100-year-old farmhouse, the album was thought lost, but the tapes and her small recording studio were the only things to survive the fire. In 2011 she appeared with Annie Sampson, Angela Strehli, and Dorothy Morrison on the live audio/video package The Blues Broads.
Nelson didn't record again for more than decade. Signing with BMG, she enlisted a cast of friends from across her career. They included Ball, Thomas, Willie Nelson, Charlie Musselwhite, Jontavious Willis, Mickey Raphael and Terry Hanck with a large cast of instrumentalists. The set offered covers of tunes by iconic composers including Hank Williams, Ma Rainey, Willie Dixon, Allen Toussaint, Chuck Berry, Doc Pomus, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Stephen Foster. Co-produced by Nelson and engineer Roger Alan Nichols, it included two versions of Foster's "Hard Times (Come Again No More)," both featuring the artist on 12-string guitar-- the first time she's played one on a record since her 1965 debut. The 13-track full length was titled Life Don't Miss Nobody and released in June 2023.
