I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, three minutes ahead of my twin brother. It was November of 1947 and my father had set up a small medical practice in New Florence, Pennsylvania, after returning from serving in the army medical core during WWII. My mother, Betty Shupe, was a nurse and helped with his practice. He was the only doctor in this small western Pennsylvania town. My two younger sisters arrived over the next eight years before we moved to nearby Johnstown. After Dr. Shupe completed a residency in Obstetrics there, he was now opening a specialized practice in a larger community.
Our home had been filled with the sound of music from the time I was born. My Dad was a talented piano and trombone player, and I started playing piano at the age of 5. I loved to practice and we were always encouraged to play and sing at church or in school. After the move to Johnstown I started taking flute lessons but continued my piano and dance lessons that I had begun while living in New Florence. We were members of a large church with many choirs and opportunities to sing, improve my reading skills, and perform.
The mid-50’s were tough times for many workers in the steel and coal industry and after about four years, my parents decided to move us out of western Pennsylvania to Nashville, TN., where my dad had been invited to join the practice of another doctor he knew from the army. At the age of 12, just as I was entering my teen years, a move to the south rocked my world. I knew very little about Nashville but it was my love of music that eased the confusion and pain of leaving a life I knew in Johnstown to this strange new life in a totally unfamiliar place. It wasn’t long before a series of fortunate circumstances helped put me on a path that opened my eyes to the music business that was a dynamic force in this southern town.
My high school band experience at Isaac Litton High School was exceptional with invitations to both the Macy’s Parade and the Tournament of Roses Parade. There were Grand Ole Opry performers and studio musicians living in my neighborhood and I would soon get to know some of them, and still do, and be introduced to people working in that world in the 60’s. Even though I thought I’d end up in the medical field like my parents, my heart, talent, and love of music lead me to enroll in the music program at George Peabody Music School, now officially Vanderbilt University. I graduated with a Bachelor of Music Education degree and had already begun to play and sing in the recording industry and gigged in the local club and party world. After a short time playing with the Nashville Symphony and turning down a offer to teach in the Metro school system, I devoted my full attention to becoming a studio musician and singer.
There are many talented people in Nashville. Getting work as a free-lance singer/musician was difficult. I was lucky to be introduced to influential people in the business and to be hired by many of them. I also became active working with the union to help organize the workforce. I have been an active member of AFTRA, now SAG-AFTRA since 1966. After the day in 1974 that Sheri Kramer, Lisa Silver, and I were serendipitously hired to work as a trio, we spent the next 10 years creating a sound that would help us become a renowned female trio and some of the busiest singers working in the studios, in Nashville, in the 70’s and 80’s.
Fred Foster, head of Monument records, offered us a recording contract and we recorded an album of our own in Muscle Shoals in the early 80’s. Life doesn’t always go as planned and Monument filed for bankruptcy in 1983. Our album was never released. Soon after that, Sheri moved to New York and in 1987 I moved to Los Angeles. We continued to work together, when possible, into the 90’s and remained close. As the music business changed and studio work slowed, Lisa became the cantor at Congregation Micah in Brentwood, TN, I received a Master’s degree in Psychology and became a Marriage and Family Therapist in Los Angeles, and Sheri received her degree in Special Education and went on to teach in the classroom in New York and Florida.
I have one son, Darren Tidwell, married to Amy, and two wonderful grandchildren, Max and Emmerson who live in Bellevue, Tennessee. My husband and I have a home in Franklin and in Los Angeles.
by Diane Tidwell Vanette, author, Cherry Sisters Music City