Penny Nichols born 26 December 1947

Penny Nichols was born in Orange County, California. She started her amazing music career in the early 1960s as a folk singer in coffeehouses around Orange County. During these formative years, she shared stages with many legendary artists including Jackson Browne, Tim Buckley, Linda Ronstadt  Jennifer Warnes and others. She sang in a bluegrass band with John, Bill & Alice McEuen until John left to take Jackson Browne’s place in The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Penny then formed a duo with Kathy Smith called the Greasy Mountain Butterballs which toured Vietnam in the fall of 1966. Upon returning, she opened for numerous artists at The Troubadour and Ash Grove clubs in Hollywood. 

In the spring of 1967, Penny rode up to San Francisco on the back of a Harley motorcycle and decided to stay there for a while. She performed in concerts and clubs all over the Bay Area including the Fillmore, the Avalon, and the Matrix. During the “Summer of Love,” Penny played at the Big Sur Folk Festival (June 28–29, 1967 with headliners Joan Baez and Judy Collins) and recorded her first album, Penny’s Arcade, for Buddha Records. After touring the U.S. promoting her album in the fall, she toured Europe in the winter of 1968, staying with George & Patty Harrison and recording at Apple Studios. 

In the mid-1970s, Penny was briefly married to actor and musician Harry Shearer (Spinal Tap, The Credibility Gap, SNL, The Simpsons). In 1975, she began to perform around Los Angeles with her jazz band, the Black Imp, and opened for Little Feat. During this time Penny also wrote and performed commercials for Toyota’s campaign to plant a tree for every car bought, for Carnation Dairies, and produced a public service announcement for the Navajo Nation called “Black Mesa” to protest the misuse of the land around the Four Corners power stations in Arizona. 

In 1977, while working with Emitt Rhodes on a record for Elektra, Penny joined Jimmy Buffett & the Coral Reefers. An original “reeferette,” she appeared in the movie FM with the band, toured the country, and earned a Platinum Record for her singing on the album Son of a Son of a Sailor. She also sang backup on albums by Roy Forbes, Jennifer Warnes (“Shot Through the Heart,” 1979), David Ossman & The Firesign Theatre, Art Garfunkel (“Fate for Breakfast,” 1979), Laura Allan, Leah Kunkel, and numerous others. 

Penny studied voice with noted vocal coach, Florence Riggs. In the late 1970s and 1980s, Penny went back to school and earned degrees in Music & Psychology from Antioch University, and then went on to Harvard University to do research in music and psychology eventually earning a Doctorate in Education there. During the same time, she recorded and toured with many performers including: Art Garfunkel, Suzi Quatro, Danny O’Keefe, Yvonne Elliman, Jennifer Warnes, Albert Brooks, The Credibility Gap, Steve Gillette, Donna Summer, and earned a Grammy nomination for her work on Arlo Guthrie’s album The Power of Love. 

In 1990, twenty-two years after her debut album, Penny co-produced her second solo album, All Life is One, which features guest appearances by Danny O’Keefe on vocals and Rick Ruskin (her co-producer) on guitar. In 1993, she released another record, Songs from the Jataka Tales, an album of songs based on 1000-year-old Buddhist stories. In 1997, while living in upstate New York, Penny and Molly Mason collaborated on the song The Unbroken Thread which is included on the CD, The Catskill Collection, a compilation of music inspired by New York’s Catskill Mountains performed by some of the regions finest musicians.

Penny became an in-demand vocal coach and teacher, working with singers to bring out their best. She believed strongly in the musicality of people and felt that everyone could sing. She released a video called You Can Sing! an encouraging and enjoyable lesson to help turn “listeners” into singers. She worked as a composer and vocal instructor based in Cambria, California. From there she oversaw Summersongs songwriting camps, held four times a year, twice in New York and twice in California. 

After a fight with breast cancer, Penny returned with a book and CD called The 8 Voyages of Nep, songs of grieving and healing inspired by her cancer treatments. In 2012, Penny recorded an album of early songs by her life-long friend Jackson Browne. Colors of the Sun: Penny Nichols sings the early songs of Jackson Browne features guest appearances by many of the people who performed with Jackson and Penny in their early days. 

Penny & Mark Rothe

Penny’s final CD is a collection of a dozen songs called Golden State, a recollection of growing up in Southern California. A true California native, she weaves stories and music from the culture that she remembers into a fine tapestry of life’s many colours. It was released in 2015. She was working on another CD at the time of her passing. She died on October 29, 2017 of cancer, at the age of 69.