Patricia Barber
Patricia Barber (born November 8, 1955) is an American jazz and blues singer, pianist, songwriter, and bandleader. Biography. Barber's father Floyd was a jazz saxophonist who played with Bud Freeman and Glenn Miller. Patricia Barber learned saxophone and piano in her youth and started singing in high school musicals. She concentrated on piano at the University of Iowa in the early 1970s. After graduating, she performed at bars and clubs in Chicago. She won a Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition in March 2003, an unusual accomplishment for someone working in the field of popular songwriting. She used  it to create a song cycle based on Ovid’s "Metamorphoses". Personal life. Barber is a lesbian; interviews with her suggest she does not try to hide this fact, but she "tires" of the public interest in her sexuality and that it contributes to her fame. In November 2008, she was interviewed by Gregg Shapiro of "Gay and Lesbian Times". Discography. An asterisk (*) indicates that the year is that of release. Source: