Under the name Rachael & Vilray, the duo perform jazz, pop, and Tin Pan Alley songs from the 1930s and 1940s.
1985
Rachael Price (born August 30, 1985) is an American jazz and blues singer, known for her work as the lead singer for the band Lake Street Dive.
She was born in Sydney, Australia, and grew up in Tennessee, graduating from the New England Conservatory of Music.
She is the great-great-granddaughter of Seventh-day Adventist leader George McCready Price, the granddaughter of Hollywood actor John Shelton, and the daughter of composer and conductor Tom Price.
Price was born in Australia and raised in Hendersonville, Tennessee.
When she was nine, she performed with The Voices of Baháʼí choir with her sisters Emily and Juliette.
At twelve, she was a soloist.
The choir toured in India, Europe, South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and Australia.
Price has said that she had a large personality as a child and accepted every opportunity to sing.
Price practices the Baháʼí Faith, and explains its influence on her musical career this way:
"We believe that music is praise, and that is service, and service is prayer, and so that’s how I think about it . . . I think music is an extremely spiritual art form. I do it for praise and gratitude. That’s what the Faith has taught me about music."
She was attracted to jazz at the age of five when she heard Ella Fitzgerald singing "The Lady is a Tramp".
She recorded her first album when she was 17.
She admires Bonnie Raitt and Nancy Wilson in part for their longevity in the music business.
2003
In 2003, Price received an honorable mention at the Montreux Jazz Festival's International Jazz Vocal Competition.
Rachael Price and the guitarist and singer Vilray also met as students at the New England Conservatory, in 2003.
2004
In 2004, she was a semifinalist and the youngest competitor in the history of the Thelonious Monk Institute Vocal Competition.
In August 2004 she made her U.S. jazz festival debut at Yale's Jazz On the Green, where she opened for Joshua Redman.
2006
She won the 2006 Independent Music Award for Best Gospel Song with her recording of "My God, My Adored One" with the Boston Praise Collective.
She appeared in concert as a featured vocalist with the T. S. Monk Sextet.
Price performs with Lake Street Dive, a band she started with Michael Calabrese, Bridget Kearney, and Mike (“McDuck”) Olson, who first met as students at the New England Conservatory of Music.
With help from an award by the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, Lake Street Dive recorded In this episode..., their debut album in 2006.
They started touring soon afterwards.
2014
Their previous album, Bad Self Portraits, was released in February 2014.
2015
In 2015 Price toured with Hot Tuna on the Jefferson Airplane 50th Anniversary tour.
She sang Grace Slick's parts.
2016
Nonesuch released the album Side Pony in February 2016.
2019
Nonesuch released their self-titled first album in 2019.
Price has been married to Canadian singer-songwriter Taylor Ashton since 2019.
