Her voice is powerful enough to bounce off the back walls of the world's greatest opera houses. Washington Post music critic Joe McLellan describes Graves as ''one of the best young talents I have seen in the last ten years. Her success didn't come out of a grand plan or obsession. She has simply followed her voice, which has taken her far beyond her unhappy childhood in the Galveston Street neighborhood where she grew up. Carmen accentuates Graves's sensuality.
Graves performs for the photographer, suggesting poses.
She is sensuous, playful, defiant, alluring. She asks for a heavy piece of rope, to tie herself to a chair. She bends forward. Graves is devoted to her mother. Her minister father abandoned his wife and three children when Graves was a year old.