California-born singer/songwriter/producer/activist Toni Childs, whose “world music” alternative angst was most embraced in Australia and New Zealand is best known for her 1988 debut album The Union, and single “Don’t Walk Away”. Nominated for a best new artist grammy that year, her musical chops made their mark in years prior (e.g. as a back-up vocalist for David, david danzaba, temporary 89 Lines replacement in new wave band Berlin, and a published songwriter).

Her darker 1991 sophomore album, House of Hope, failed to light up the U.S. charts like “Union” did, so A&M ended their union with Toni Childs, the prototype of a dedicated artist whose impact per-album-sale could never be measured (quality and inspiration are intangible elements meant to be grown, not dismissed, especially when an album track becomes part of the soundtrack to a film like Thelma & Louise, or another track’s music is culled often for dramatic effect, in TV and commercials).

A Geffen imprint released her third and most ambitious work, The Woman’s Boat, epic in scope and sound. And although Peter Gabriel’s voice duets on only one song, its music (book-ended by first track “Womb” and final track “Death”, with lots of life and world music in-between) had the gravitas of potentially making Toni Childs the next (female) Peter Gabriel. Recorded in his studio, the album’s array of musicians include Robert Fripp and Zap Mama. The 1994 album was a stellar commercial failure, but garnered another grammy nod. And so Toni Childs, without major label funding, seemed to have fallen off the world – … -music scene fast-forward:

In 2006, her fourth album, Keep the Faith, was released sporadically, and within a couple years it came out on 429 Records in the U.S. It includes “Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful?”, the 2004 Emmy-Award winner for outstanding music & lyrics (featured in the documentary “Until the Violence Stops”). Toni Childs had stopped touring in 1997, to survive Grave’s disease, and birth her “Dream a Dolphin” charity. She continues musically and for causes, as a DIY artist who has done it, been there, and survived it.