Born to an artistic Arkansas family, singer/songwriter S.J. Tucker took inspiration from Joni Mitchell, Jeff Buckley, and Ani DiFranco when she began performing in 1997. She formed her first band, Skinny White Chick, in 1999; after playing a series of festivals in 2002 and releasing her first album, Haphazard, Tucker decided to become a full-time musician in 2004. That same year, she met fire spinner Kevin Wiley. The two hit it off immediately and formed the performance troupe Fire and Strings, which performed at Burning Man in 2005. A year later, Tucker co-founded the West Coast band/musical collective Tricky Pixie with Betsy Tinney and Alexander James Adams. In 2007, she released Blessings and Solace and Sorrow , a companion album to the Catherynne M. Valente novel The Orphan's Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice. ~ Katherine Fulton