Her Story

Her name represents hope to hundreds of women. As a musician, breast cancer survivor, mother, Katrina survivor and activist for the rights of the ill and dying, she embodies a fierce belief in possibility and growth.

The Beginning

Her cancer was invasive…….and it had entered her lymph nodes. She was hustled quickly into surgery for a mastectomy and lymph node removal. She remembers trying to cajole the surgical team into singing "Louie, Louie" while being wheeled into the operating room.

She says she felt much better after the cancer was removed. Her fatigue and fever disappeared. Things were looking up.

She immediately returned to her normal routine of work with part-time visits to the studio at night, and occasional rehearsals, which she snickers over. “Shyeah, I got your rehearsals right here,” she laughs. “We spent most of ‘em talking marriage and kids while we drank wine and tried not to eat too much.”

Her oncologist wanted her to have treatment. He offered her a choice of radiation (every day for weeks) or chemotherapy (one treatment a month for four months). She resisted. She couldn’t fit the radiation into her job schedule. Chemotherapy filled her with dread. She put it off.

Meantime, the album finished, the girls had a successful CD premiere gig (with Nita wrapped in bandages from her surgery hidden under a loose-fitting shirt).

I saw that show. Nita shone like a beacon. When she opens her lips anywhere, people sit up and listen. And listen, and listen.

You know how a crowd likes to make noise? Lots of moving around, shifting in their seats, kids whining…….but when she sings, everything stops. Right there. As if for a moment, the only thing that exists is that one note that she’s setting on fire, or the next note, or the next.

She torched the house that night with a blistering rendition of Stormy Monday that I remember to this day. At the mention of it, she quirks a smile. “Kick-butt blues in chest staples and tight bandages, ya know? It brings a whole new meaning to oxygen deprivation,” she laughs.

I tell her I had no idea that she was recovering from surgery that night. “I did," she laughs. "Believe me. But you weren’t supposed to, right? So it worked pretty well.”

The CD did well in online sales on MP3. One of her songs climbed to #3 in Germany on MP3 online radio. “It was about my marriage. I had Tina sing it. I was a little too close to the subject,” she grinned. The band broke up around the time Nita had made her choice to take chemotherapy.

She claims her voice never fully recovered its power after chemo. But she doesn’t seem to mind that, she says. “It’s not like in blues it makes for a big change, you know?” After prodding her a little, she gives in and belts out a quick run-through of “Come on in My Kitchen.”

I can’t tell any difference, I say to her. She smiles ruefully and says she hears that a lot. Her voice is stunning in real life…..powerful, sultry and passionate. She can do amazing things with it, growling, rolling it, breaking it, throwing it high into a clear, almost Celtic soprano, dropping it dizzyingly into a rich, chocolate alto.