Critics have compared her style to powerful singers including Janis Joplin[1] and Aretha Franklin.
[2] At age 14, while attending Sequoia High School, Pense started singing with a band called the Dimensions, with guitarist Fred Tatman, Larry Hatch, and Kerry Yates.
Janis Joplin had recommended Lydia Pense to music promoter Bill Graham to audition for the band Cold Blood.
[1] Lydia joined Cold Blood in 1968, and the band was one of the earliest music groups to be signed by Graham's Fillmore Records.
Their initial four albums, Cold Blood, Sisyphus, First Taste of Sin (produced by Donny Hathaway), and Thriller remain the band's best-known work.