Pura Fé (born Pura Fé Antonia "Toni" Crescioni) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, story teller, instructor, seamstress, artist and reviver of Canoe song/dance and woman's drum. Pura Fe is the founding member of the women's a cappella trio Ulali.
Personal life
Pura Fé was born in New York City and brought up by her mother and grandparents in a family of women singers. She claims to be of Tuscarora ("Deer Clan of North Carolina"), African-American, and Scotch-Irish descent. Her maternal grandparents, Kepple and Easter Monk, moved to New York from North Carolina in the 1930s and met in Harlem.
Her mother, Nanice Monk Lund, was a classically trained opera singer who toured with Duke Ellington and his Sacred Concert Series. Her father, Juan Antonio Crescioni-Collazo, was born in Maunabo, Puerto Rico. She claims his maternal roots are Taíno and Canary Island Spanish/Berber. His paternal Corsican immigrant grandparents migrated to Puerto Rico in the mid 1800s.
In New York City, Pura Fé was on the board of the American Indian Community House (AICH). She and other family members are involved in the NYC Urban Indian community network. This includes the Indigenous Permanent Forums at the United Nations and many functions and groups.
In 1997 Pura Fé moved to North Carolina and worked with several communities teaching culture, song and dance, helped to build a Native woman's society. She brought her students from the "Seventh Generation Youth Group" under the "North Carolina Indian Cultural Center" to open for Ulali and later brought the Prospect Tuscarora Long House to perform annually at New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Merle Fest and travel up North to visit their Northern Iroquois kin and communities with Ulali. Pura Fe won several awards for her cultural contributions.
In 2015 Pura Fé moved, married and lives in Northern Saskatchewan, Canada, raising grand nieces and nephew. She has been working with several Native theater, dance theater groups and Native filmmakers, composing/recording music on several movie soundtracks and music videos for National Canadian TV and APTN. 2020 began a lot of online concerts, workshopping and interviews. In August 2021, the original Ulali came together after 15 years and sang at "Indian Market" in New Mexico on behalf of the Artist, Patrick Collins painting fund raiser and awareness of MMIW.
Training
As an adolescent, Pura Fé studied and performed with the American Ballet Theatre, briefly trained at Martha Graham school and performed in Broadway musicals The Me Nobody Knows, Ari and Via Galactica. At the age of 22 Pura Fe sang with the Mercer Ellington Orchestra, opening for the Duke Ellington School in WA, DC, where she was given praise by Lena Horne and Danny Glover from the front row seats.
She attended a professional children's school for the Arts at Lincoln Square Academy in the late 1960s-73 with friends and Alumni as Irene Cara, Stephanie Mills, Benjamin Stiller, Robbie Benson, Gian Carlo Esposito, Lawrence Fishburn, Pia Zadora and more. Pura Fe worked as a waitress at club Max's Kansas City in New York during the Punk Era. Soon after, she began singing in bands and as a studio singer. She recorded jingles, commercials, backup and lead vocals on demos and the original recordings like "Good Enough", written by James McBride for Anita Baker.
Career
In 1994, she was nominated and performed at the Juno Awards for Best Global Recording, for the album Condor Meets the Eagle by Kanatan Aski with Pura Fé. She released the CD, Mahk Jchi with Ulali on "Corn, Beans and Squash Music" and she appeared with Ulali on Robbie Robertson’s Music for the Native Americans.
In 1995, she released her first solo album, the R&B-inspired Caution to the Wind, written and produced by James McBride, on Shanachie Records. She appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno with Ulali and Robbie Robertson, debuting the Ulali song "Mahk Jchi (Heartbeat Drum Song)", which went platinum in Italy.
In 1996, she appeared and toured on The Indigo Girls' album Shaming of the Sun with Ulali.
She has appeared on many recordings and film soundtracks including the television series The Native Americans and The L-Word, and the films Smoke Signals, Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, Falls Around Her and Bones of Crows.
After hearing guitarist Kelly Joe Phelps perform, Pura Fé began to play the acoustic lap slide guitar and recorded her second solo album, Follow Your Heart's Desire, released on the Music Maker label.