Born in the North (Detroit, Michigan) raised in the rural south (Greensboro, Alabama). Pure Musical Magic. Vanessa has a flavor of Sam Cooke in Vanessa's powerhouse gospel vocals. “I grew up listening to everything - Otis Redding, George Jones, Dolly Parton, The Staple Singers and a bunch of Gospel Singers,” Hill says in a phone conversation from her Alabama home. Contributor, Phil Sweetland At a very early age Vanessa was singing and writing her own songs. After graduation she married and moved to Germany. It was 3 years later she had a daughter and name her, Vanessa. Soon single she moved to Nashville where she and her daughter slept in her S10 Blazer before finding an apartment. Less than two years later she was asked to sign an artist deal with Sony/Tree. However the label was going through many changes at that time and she asked to be released. Within the third year of moving to Nashville she was asked to sign with Warner Bros. Records; Jim Ed Norman, President. After several years on the label as a single artist, both she and her daughter were asked to sign as "The Vanessas," a Mother Daughter Duo. Vanessa plays guitar well enough to write and compose her own songs and has had cuts with artists such as The World's Famous Bellamy Brothers; We dared the Lightning played on more than one hundred radio stations and was featured in Billboard Magazine. It was released as a single and again as a dance mix holding steady in top 10 CMT videos for several weeks. The story behind the song: CMA's in 1995 and just a couple of days out of the studio, the Brother's road manager Randy Herbert, heard the rough demo of "We Dared The Lightning" from the back seat of a limousine. He asked who is that singing and said "I have got to have that song". The Brother's heard the song and asked if they could record it. A year later the brothers recorded another song of hers, "SHERO" an album cut. Album - LONELY PLANET - Vanessa has co-written several songs with Noah and Jesse Bellamy, Tim Johnson, Jimmy Scott, Artie Kornfeld, started a co-write with the amazing Harlan Howard, and others. Vanessa has worked as a personal and contracted chauffeur for acts such as Cee Cee Winans, Danny Glover, Jeff Foxworthy, Ashley Judd, Andrae Crouch, and other well know acts... even guest for The Jerry Springer Show. Vanessa has worked with the Country Music Foundation to help develop youth programs, "Camp Summer Song." She has received a certificate for her participation in the Foundation's "Words and Music programs" for the song "Everything's Gonna Be Alright" in memory of Adrienne Dickerson who was murdered in the parking lot of a Nashville supermarket. While signed as an artist on Warner Bros., she founded "THE COLOR OF MUSIC" a youth organization teaching children the value of life through the arts, Music, Spoken Words and Visual Arts. 2003 Soon she had to make a choice between career and family. She finally decided to move back home where she would be closer to her aging mother. While there she served as Mayor of her hometown Greensboro (The Municipality the County). 2004. In 2012 her mother age 97, passed. After taking some time to regroup Vanessa is now writing and singing better than ever. In 2015 she revisited "THE COLOR OF MUSIC" as a 501 (c)(3) in an effort to SAVE THE MUSIC & SAVE OUR YOUTH.