Pura Fé

Personal life

Pura Fé was born in New York City and brought up by her mother, grandparents and family of women singers who are Tuscarora. They count eight generations of singing sisters from North Carolina. The family moved to New York from North Carolina in the 1930s.

Her mother, Nanice Lund was a classically trained opera singer who toured with Duke Ellington and his Sacred Concert Series.

Her father, Juan Antonio Crescioni-Collazo, was born in Maunabo, Puerto Rico, of both Taíno Indian and Corsican immigrant grandparents.

In New York City, Pura Fé was on the board of the American Indian Community House (AICH).

She currently lives in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Training

As an adolescent, Pura Fé studied and performed with the American Ballet Theatre, briefly trained at Martha Graham school and performed in Broadway musicals The Me Nobody Knows, Ari and Via Galactica. She also sang with the Mercer Ellington Orchestra.

She attended Lincoln Square Academy. In the late 1970s, she worked as a waitress at club Max's Kansas City in New York. Soon after, she began singing in bands and as a studio singer. She recorded jingles, commercials, backup vocals and lead on demos and recordings such as Good Enough written by James McBride.

Career

In 1994, she was nominated and performed at the Juno Awards for Best Global Recording, for the album Condor Meets the Eagle by Kanatan Aski with Pura Fé. She released the CD, Mahk Jchi with Ulali on Corn, Beans and Squash Music and she appeared with Ulali on Robbie Robertson’s Music for the Native Americans.

In 1995, she released her first solo album, the R&B inspired, Caution to the Wind, written and produced by James McBride on Shanachie Records. She also appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno with Ulali and Robbie Robertson, debuting the Ulali song Mahk Jchi (Heartbeat Drum Song), which went platinum in Italy. In 1996, she appeared and toured on The Indigo Girls, Shaming of the Sun Album with Ulali.

She has appeared on many recordings and film soundtracks including Miramax’s Smoke Signals soundtrack, the Turner Documentary series The Native Americans, 1 Giant Leap DVD, The World Festival of Sacred Music for the Dalai Lama, Showtime's The L-Word, and "A Thousand Roads" soundtrack.

After hearing guitarist Kelly Joe Phelps perform, Pura Fé began to play the acoustic lap slide guitar and recorded her second solo album, Follow Your Heart's Desire, released on the Music Maker label.

A year later, she opened for Neil Young in Berkeley, California, singing Rise Up Tuscarora Nation and Find the Cost of Freedom. As a solo artist, she has also opened for Herbie Hancock, Taj Mahal, Al Jarreau and George Duke.

Pura Fé won a NAMMY (Native American Music Award) for best female artist in 2006 and a L'Académie Charles Cros Award for best world album.

Her third album, Hold The Rain, was released in 2007 with guitarist Danny Godinez.

In late 2009, she released Full Moon Rising for DixieFrog Records and toured extensively throughout Europe.

Her fifth solo album, a live double CD, was released in the spring of 2011: "A Blues Night in North Carolina." She currently performs internationally with her band and the Deer Clan Singers and has announced a new Ulali Project album for 2017.

Activism

Pura Fé has lent her voice to many environmental and Indigenous rights groups and campaigns. In 2013, she rowed in the Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign canoe journey In 2014, she participated in the Honor the Earth Love Water Not Oil Tour with Winona LaDuke to oppose the Enbridge expansions of the tar sands and fracked oil pipelines. She marched with Ulali Project in the front lines of the People's Climate March singing the song, "Idle No More," which she co wrote with Cary Morin for the Idle No More movement.

Pura Fé moved to North Carolina in the 1990s and volunteered to teach young people in the rural Indian communities of Robeson County, North Carolina. She won the Community Spirit Award from the First Peoples Fund of the Tides Foundation and later won its fellowship award for her volunteer contributions.

Albums

Side projects, Contributions & Collaborations