ArtistWorks: When did you first learn how to sing and who taught you?

Jeannie: I was blessed to grow up in a family of professional artists, actors and musicians. I was surrounded by all manners of amazing and well-known musicians from Classical to Blues, Jazz, Folk, World Music and Gospel. So with those influences and without any vocal training, I began singing and performing at a very early age.

My professional singing career began when I was 12 years old in New York City where, along with Janis Ian, I opened for Richie Havens. I had a powerful but small vocal range. Even though I couldn’t do everything that I wanted to do with my voice, for many years I was afraid of going to a vocal coach. I didn’t want my individuality as a singer to be taken away and had heard too many instances of that happening to non-classical singers.

By the time I was about 20, I decided to focus on music (I had also been performing as a dancer and an actress). I really wanted to be a complete professional. I decided that meant I needed to be totally confident with my voice and able to sing anything and any way I wanted, with ease. So a friend of my family referred me to Barbara Streisand’s voice teacher. I studied with her in New York City for a couple of summers in 1970-71.

Following that, while in Boston I took some singing lessons with another teacher. He was teaching all the big Rock acts coming out of the Boston area. Though he was an Opera singer, he called himself a Rock and Pop voice teacher. During my time in Boston in the early ‘70s I also tried a few other teachers for a lesson or two.