Avery*Sunshine is set to make her ESSENCE Fest debut this summer on our Superlounge stage and we couldn’t be more excited to have her on board. Though she’s worked with heavy hitters like Tyler Perry and sung for legendary artists like Aretha Franklin, many are still getting to know her music. To ensure you are prepared to sing along to every word of her songs, we wanted to introduce you to one of our new songbirds and give you a chance to check out her performance skills for yourselves on a livestreamed performance set to air this evening.
As you can tell from the soulful vocals on her No. 1 hit , “Call On Me,” Sunshine got her start in the church. The trained pianist sang in her hometown of Chester, PA, right outside of Philadelphia, until she moved to Atlanta, Georgia to attend Spelman College. During her time in the south, she met a fellow multitalented artist named Maia Wilson. She and the current Broadway star formed a duo called DaisyRew and hit the Atlanta soul music scene with a vengeance. Soon, Sunshine and Wilson were performing in the biggest, most popular venues and gaining hundreds of fans in the process.
The two eventually parted ways to move forward with their solo careers. Avery went on to sing background on The Fighting Temptations soundtrack and work as a lead pianist in Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns.
Today, the divorced mother of two is doing all that she can to ensure she’s reminding everyone who meets her to shine (hence the ‘*’ symbol in her name). Her career has taken off and after “Call on Me” went no. 1 on the Billboard charts at the end of 2014, more people have been exposed to her raw talent and honest content.
She says, “I am a self-proclaimed therapist! I want to start the conversation that will lead to individual healing and in turn will affect our collective healing. Let’s get people talking about their experiences so that we can learn from them, grow from them and more importantly, move on from them.”
While she’s on her national tour (you can keep up with her movements by liking her Facebook page), the bubbly talent is making an extra special stop at USAToday to perform live and to sit down for a one-on-one interview. Be sure to tune in, there’s nothing like a pre-show to get you ready for the big day.
Watch Avery*Sunshine and her talented guitarist Dana Johnson on usatoday.com at 8:30 p.m. ET/5:30 PT, this evening (April 8).
For more on Avery, visit her website and to see her at ESSENCE Fest 2015, buy your discounted weekend passes, here!