About Debbie
Debbie Sanders
Storyteller & Songwriter
Debbie was born in Catford, South East London and grew up in Bromley. She has a brother Mark Sanders, drummer and improviser who heavily influenced her love of music.
In her early teens she heard Punk music and was totally excited by its energy. She joined friends rehearsing and performing in local garage bands and eventually joined a girl band called 'The Spiders' and began performing in London venues.
In her twenties Debbie starting working with Bands like 'Chapter and The Verse' and 'Skylab' touring and recording, as well as working as a session singer and working with other artists such as Howie B, Davie Ray Moore.
Aged 30 Debbie had her first child Stan, and didn't feel that touring with bands worked for her anymore. When Stan started school it came to light that he was experiencing racist comments.. She mentioned this to her best friend Jan Blake (world renowned storyteller) who encouraged her to start storytelling in the school. Jan armed her with some great Afro Caribbean stories. After witnessing the impact it had on children, Debi was convinced of the transformative power storytelling had on the children.
Going on to have two daughters and continuing storytelling, Debbie found herself inspired to write her own children Songs, she taught herself music software and started recording. She has been fortunate enough to have some wonderful musicians and producers work with her and has amassed a large catalogue of songs.
Debi was also inspired to create children's books and create animations based on the character from her musical stories and songs. She asked her father Peter Sanders, a retired commercial artists, to start working with her on developing the songs characters such as Jazz Cat, Teddy Bear and many more
It has been one of Debbie's greatest joys to be introduced to Oren Marshall, world renowned Tuba player and multi-instrumentalist, who runs 'Jazz for Toddlers' classes for families with babies and young children in the community. Debbie joined forces and added her storytelling to the mix, the classes were hugely successful, and led to them producing an album 'Belly of the Whale' which was full of the stories and songs shared in these classes.
Debbie still enjoys performing with various artists including her brother Mark Sanders's outfit Staggerlee Wonders. Alongside Mark she has also performed with Saxophonist and composer Rachael Musson at Cheltenham Jazz Festival the for radio 3's Jazz Now, and at Cafe Oto, on Rachael's composition 'I went This Way'.
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