Zora Young is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 singer. She is a distant relative

Kinship

Kinship is a relationship between any entities that share a genealogical origin, through either biological, cultural, or historical descent. And descent groups, lineages, etc. are treated in their own subsections....

 of Howlin' Wolf

Howlin' Wolf

Chester Arthur Burnett , known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player....

.

Young's family moved to Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 at age seven and sang gospel

Gospel music

Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....

 at the Greater Harvest Baptist Church. As an adult she began singing blues and R&B

Rhythm and blues

Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...

 music, and over the course of her career played with Junior Wells

Junior Wells

Junior Wells , born Amos Wells Blakemore Jr., was an American Chicago blues vocalist, harmonica player, and recording artist...

, Jimmy Dawkins

Jimmy Dawkins

James Henry "Jimmy" Dawkins is an American Chicago blues and electric blues guitarist and singer. He is generally considered a part of the "West Side Sound" of Chicago blues.-Career:...

, Bobby Rush

Bobby Rush

Bobby Lee Rush is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1993. He is a member of the Democratic Party.The district is located principally on the South Side of Chicago. It is a minority-majority district and has a higher percentage of African Americans than any other congressional district in...

, Buddy Guy

Buddy Guy

George "Buddy" Guy is an American blues and jazz guitarist and singer. He is a critically acclaimed artist who has established himself as a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound, and has served as an influence to some of the most notable musicians of his generation...

, Albert King

Albert King

Albert King was an American blues guitarist and singer, and a major influence in the world of blues guitar playing.-Career:...

, Professor Eddie Lusk, and B. B. King

B. B. King

Riley B. King , known by the stage name B.B. King, is an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter.Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at No.3 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. According to Edward M...

. Among those she has collaborated with on record

Gramophone record

A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...

 are Willie Dixon

Willie Dixon

William James "Willie" Dixon was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. A Grammy Award winner who was proficient on both the Upright bass and the guitar, as well as his own singing voice, Dixon is arguably best known as one of the most prolific songwriters...

, Sunnyland Slim

Sunnyland Slim

Albert "Sunnyland Slim" Luandrew was an American blues pianist, who was born in the Mississippi Delta, and later moved to Chicago, Illinois, to contribute to that city's post-war scene as a center for blues music...

, Mississippi Heat

Mississippi Heat

Mississippi Heat is an American blues band.The group was formed in 1991 in Chicago, Illinois, and was strongly influenced by early electric blues of the 1950s...

, Paul DeLay

Paul deLay

Paul Joseph deLay , was an American blues vocalist and harmonicist from Portland, Oregon.-Life and career:Paul deLay was born January 31, 1952 in Portland, Oregon....

, and Maurice John Vaughan

Maurice John Vaughan

Maurice John Vaughn is an American blues musician from Chicago, Illinois. He is a guitarist, saxophonist, keyboardist and singer.-Biography:...

.

In 1982, she toured Europe on the bill with Bonnie Lee

Bonnie Lee

Bonnie Lee was an American Chicago blues singer. Known as 'Sweetheart of the Blues', she is best remembered for her lengthy working relationships with Sunnyland Slim and Willie Kent...

 and Big Time Sarah

Big Time Sarah

Big Time Sarah, is an American blues singer.-Biography:Sarah Streeter was raised in Chicago, Illinois, from early childhood, where she sang in gospel choirs in South Chicago churches...

 in 'Blues with the Girls', and then recorded

Sound recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

 an album

Album

An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. She was later cast in the role of Bessie Smith

Bessie Smith

Bessie Smith was an American blues singer.Sometimes referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s...

 in the stage show, The Heart of the Blues. By 1991 she had recorded the album, Travelin' Light, with the Canadian guitar player, Colin Linden

Colin Linden

Colin Linden is a Canadian musician, songwriter and record producer. He has worked with a wide variety of artists including Bruce Cockburn, Lucinda Williams, T-Bone Burnett, Colin James, Leon Redbone, Rita Chiarelli, Chris Thomas King and The Band.Linden is primarily a electric blues guitarist,...

.

Young has toured Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 more than thirty times, in addition to appearances in Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 and Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

. She was the featured performer at the Chicago Blues Festival

Chicago Blues Festival

The Chicago Blues Festival is an annual event held in June that features three days of performances by top-tier blues musicians, both old favorites and the up-and-coming. It is hosted by the City of Chicago Mayor's Office of Special Events, and always occurs in early June...

 three times.

Discography

• Travelin' Light (Deluge Records, 1991)
• Learned My Lesson (Delmark Records
  Delmark Records
  Delmark Records is an independent American jazz and blues record label, based in Chicago since 1958. The label originated in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1953 when owner Bob Koester released a recording of the Windy City Six, a traditional jazz group, under the "Delmar" imprint.-History:Born in 1932 in...
  
  , 2000)
• Tore Up from the Floor Up (Delmark, 2005)
• Sunnyland (Airway, 2009)
• The French Connection (Delmark, 2009)