Equipped with a smoky voice, bass, and the button accordion, Tara Linda is a torch vocalist who writes jazzy blues, 1930’s Latin torch, and playful circus waltzes. A poet at heart, her songs tell lyric tales of girls on trapeze, blue fur monkeys, and Wild West goddesses. Tara Linda wrote her first song after discovering the rhythm of her tricycle wheels on sidewalk seams.  Staying true to rhythm, she played drums in rock and punkbands for 15 years in Austin and Sacramento.

After a shoulder injury sidelined her drumming, she began to sing.  With a voice described as “mesmerizing” and “soulful” Tara Linda performed in live musical theater.  It was while mending from her injury that she began to teach herself the button accordion.  “When I started singing with the accordion, I couldn’t believe the emotional effect on audiences,” she notes.  Responding to this, she wrote new waltzes, train songs, and desert cabaret for her debut CD “Fool’s Journey” in 2006.  Written in a playful, minimalist style, the CD garnered 5 stars on “CD Baby’s” Editor’s choice in the Jazzy Blues Category.

"What spooky loveliness. This woman's voice is like a cool glass of water, and her soulful cabaret is the perfect soundtrack to a lazy afternoon....”
Val Esway, Soup and Song

“Studying the accordion has been a trip around the world;" Tara says, "from ancient Sephardic tunes, through French cafés, to the Tex-Mex border and the women of South Texas Conjunto.”

Tara Linda skirts easily through global genres yet seamlessly blends them into a style uniquely her own. In her newest project, Tara Linda connects the worlds of rhythm, spacious deserts and borderlands into “Tortilla Western” ~ where film noir meets the Wild West.

Tara Linda lives in Oakland, California, and performs solo or with:
The Blue Fur Monkeys~ Jazzy blues, desert cabaret, torch and train songs; and
Tara Linda y Luna Nueva~ 1930’s Tex-Mex, covering Lydia Mendoza and the women of South Texas.  She sings boleros, rancheras, and cumbias in the early dueto style with special musical guests.

Discography:
Tara Luna & Luna Nueva: (2008)  New Moon.
Tara Linda: (2006) Fool’s Journey 
Polliwog: (2001) Musical Score to Hamlet’s Woman (Theater)
The Succulents: (1999) The Witch, the Sailor, & the Enchanted Monkey