Dara Starr Tucker

Dara Tucker is making her mark in the world of organic, heartfelt music by blending the melodic and lyrical richness of the central plains with the soulful strains of the African American experience as a vocalist, songwriter and band leader.

Dara co-wrote the title track to, "Oklahoma” the 2020 GRAMMY-winning "Best Americana Album" for singer-songwriter, Keb’ Mo’. Her six studio albums contain an array of unique stories and melodies that evoke a wide range of experiences and musical expressions including standards, spirituals & soul. The most recent, “Dreams of Waking: Music for A Better World,” highlights the call for change that has swept across The United States in recent years. Tucker presents reimagined classic singer-songwriter and soul compositions of the protest era through the lens of jazz. For this project, Dara’s collaborators include pianists Cyrus Chestnut and Sullivan Fortner, bassists Dezron Douglas and Vicente Archer, drummers Johnathan Blake and Joe Dyson along with saxophonist John Ellis and trumpeter Giveton Gelin.

Dara’s eclecticism is guided by the diversity of her narrative. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to a family of singers and ministers, Dara Tucker and her siblings traveled across the United States as young children singing with their parents. After moving to Interlaken, Switzerland to further study the German language after graduating college, she was reunited with her passion for music and began writing the first of many original songs. That passion for songwriting and singing led her back across the Atlantic to Nashville, Tennessee as a band leader, songwriter and featured vocalist for many years, and eventually to New York, NY.

As an independent artist and bandleader, Dara has toured nationally with her own bands and with hybrid guitarist Charlie Hunter's group. She's opened for Grammy-winning vocalist Gregory Porter, appeared on NPR's Jazz Night in America and made her national television debut on The Tavis Smiley Show on PBS. As a vocalist, Dara won the Johnny Mercer Foundation Award, the Ben Tucker Jazz Award and the silver medal in the American Traditions Vocal Competition. Dara has also contributed to the Huffington Post as a cultural commentator and essayist. Before leaving Nashville, she captured, "Song of the Year" and "Jazz Vocalist of the Year" awards at the Nashville Independent Music Awards.