ABOUT DEBI
Debi was born in Catford, South East London and grew up in Bromley. She has a brother Mark Sanders,drummer and improviser and a sister Anna.
Mark heavily influenced Debi's early musical taste as she'd listen to whatever music he was into.. .
my beautiful mum Ella
In her early teens she heard Punk music and was totally excited by it's energy. She joined friends rehearsing and performing in local garage bands and eventually joined a girl band called 'The Spiders' who performed and supporting bands like 'The Nips'.
In her twenties Debi starting working with Bands 'Chapter and The Verse' and 'Skylab' touring and recording. as well as working with other artists such as Howie B, Davie Ray Moore.
Aged 30 DebI 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 and on her.
Going on to have two more children and continuing storytelling, Debi found herself inspired to write her own children Songs, she taught herself music software and started recording, and she accumulated a large catalogue of songs.
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She took these songs to her good friend and former 'Skylab' band member, Matty Ducasse, (Matty Skylab) he was her first port-of-call to help produce them, adding his magic and humour, he made the songs Shine, Ping, Buzz, and Zing ! Together they have amassed a huge catalogue of Debi 'n' Mati Songs.
They performed at Camp Bestival
Also Debbie was fortunate to have some of Britains greatest jazz musicians play on some of her tracks, as well as the chance to work with another former band member, Chapter and the Verse's Aniff Cousins (Big Babba) on tracks like "Grumpy Grumpy Father Christmas' and Betty Betty Bulldog'
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Debi was also inspired to create children's books and animations based on the character from her musical stories and songs. She asked her father Peter Sanders to come on board to do the illustrations. Peter, who had been one of London’s top commercial artists, specialising in film posters, album covers and advertisements. was at that time was retired and working on landscapes, figurative and abstract pieces. He began working with Debi on developing characters such as Jazz Cat, Mitzy Morgan Taylor and many more.
With his distinctive style Pete has brought many of the stories to life.
​Debi went on to bring in many other artists, illustrators and animators
It has also been on of Debi's greatest joys to be introduced to Oren Marshall by her Brother Mark. Oren is a world renowned Tuba player and multi-instrumentalist, who runs 'Jazz for Toddlers' classes for families with babies and young children in the community. Debi joined forces and added her storytelling to the mix, the classes were hugely successful, and led to Debi and Oren producing an album 'Belly of the Whale' which was full of the stories and songs shared in these classes also works in
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'.
