Sista Monica Parker

Sista Monica Parker (b. Gary, April 27, 1956 -- d. Modesto, California, October 9, 2014) – Singer, songwriter, and producer. Born and raised in Gary, Sista Monica grew up singing Gospel music and went on mini-tours of the Midwest with her church choir at age twelve. Although Gospel and soul had a profound effect on her upbringing, she did not pursue music right away. Instead, she served in the U.S. Marine Corps and then worked in the business world in Northern California’s Silicon Valley. Inspired by the musical success of her friend Stanley Burrell (M.C. Hammer), she began singing in the early to mid 1990s. On the strength of her first two CDs and her growing reputation as a dynamic performer, she received a nomination for the W.C Handy Award for “Best Contemporary Blues Female Artist” in 1998. In the same year, she was named “The Most Outstanding Blues Artist” of California, and in 1999 and 2000, she was nominated for “Best International Performer” in the United Kingdom. At the turn of the new millennium, she continued to earn praise for her international touring and steady flow of recordings (including a Gospel CD in 2001). After returning from a tour of the Netherlands in November 2002, her career came to a screeching halt when she was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma, a rare type of cancer. Despite the professionals’ grim predictions, Parker beat the illness and returned to the studio in 2004. The result was the aptly titled You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down. From 1995 to 2012, she released a total of eleven albums, all on No Muscle Records. On five occasions, she was named "Soul Blues Female Artist of the Year" by the Blues Foundation. Her last one in 2015 came posthumously after she had succumbed to lung cancer in 2014.