Vesta Williams — American Musician born on December 01, 1957, died on September 22, 2011

Mary Vesta Williams was an American recording artist and songwriter, who performed across genres such as pop, jazz, adult contemporary and R&B. Originally credited as Vesta Williams, she was sometimes simply billed as Vesta beginning in the 1990s. She was known for her four-octave vocal range. She once sang The Star Spangled Banner for the Los Angeles Lakers game opener using all four of those octaves. Although Williams never had any albums certified gold nor any Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, she scored six Top 10 hits on the United States Billboard R&B chart from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s which included "Once Bitten, Twice Shy", "Sweet Sweet Love", "Special", and her 1989 hit and signature song, "Congratulations"... (wikipedia)

I guess I was always a ham, and I was anxious to try doing different things. I started doing impressions to make friends at school. I would do them during recess. Maybe some of the kids thought I was being weird, but everyone seemed to have a good time.
Don't you dare print my first name. That would make me sound like a real country girl.
I've always felt that to deliver a song successfully, you have to be an actress. A good actress becomes the part, just as a good singer becomes the song.
A lot of people have called me the black Bette Midler, and I regard that as a compliment.
According to my grandmother, I started singing as soon as I began talking. I always wanted to be an entertainer. I knew that from the start.