A Night of Soul with Kindred the Family Soul and Avery Sunshine

Overview

Kindred the Family Soul, also referred to as Kindred, are an American R&B, soul, and neo soul duo consisting of the married couple of Fatin Dantzler and Aja Graydon. Signed to Hidden Beach Recordings, Kindred emerged from the Philadelphia neo soul movement that also includes Jill Scott, who discovered them while the couple was performing at the Black Lily Film & Music Festival.

After two years of work on the CD, Hidden Beach issued their debut album Surrender to Love in February 2003, which included, among others, the songs "Stars" and "Far Away". Their follow-up album was 2005's In This Life Together—its title being a reference to Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee's 1998 book With Ossie & Ruby: In This Life Together—, spawning the single "Where Would I Be (The Question)".

The duo were nominated for a Soul Train Music Award for Best R&B/Soul Album, Group Band or Duo for Surrender to Love in 2004 and a BET Award for the BET J Cool Like That Award in 2006. The group's third LP, The Arrival, was released on October 21, 2008. In 2011, they released their third album called Love Has No Recession and they just released their fifth album in June of this year entitled, A Couple Friends.

Denise Nicole White, known professionally as Avery Sunshine, is an American singer and pianist.  White was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, to Ruth Eleanor White and Irving Cyril White. She began playing piano at 8, after she saw a classmate perform, and learned to read hymns before beginning to study classical music at 11. At 13 she expanded her repertoire to include jazz and had her first recital. Three years later, her Aunt, a church choir director, asked Sunshine to fill in for her during a Sunday service at a Catholic church; she was subsequently hired by churches of all denominations, including the AME Church, where she performed with the award-winning Wilmington/Chester Mass Choir.

White, who sang in her high school choir, graduated from the Country Day of the Sacred Heart in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania in 1993. She attended Spelman College in Atlanta, and although she enrolled as a Piano major, she switched course after she became disillusioned with the music program. Sunshine graduated with a degree in Philosophy in 1998.

White and Johnson, who she met at church who was a producer and guitarist, began work on what would become Avery Sunshine’s self-titled debut album, released in 2010 on their own label, BigShine. Recorded mainly at White’s home with ProTools, the record included guest appearances from pianist Takana Miyamoto, vibraphone player Roy Ayers and Christian McBride. The record was praised by the media, with USA Today calling it "refreshingly original" and The Washington Post describing it as "a radiant brand of soul." White—a single mother of two – focused on Avery Sunshine, but also accepted jobs as a keyboardist with artists including Tyler Perry and Jennifer Holiday and served as a choral director for Atlanta performances by artists such as Michael Buble, Anthony Hamilton, and David Foster. From 2010 until late 2013, Avery Sunshine toured consistently, and developed a following throughout the United States, the UK, Europe, and Africa. She began recording a second album, The Sunroom, in November 2013, which was released in May 2014 through a partnership with Shanachie Records.