Marilyn Driggs Biography  

Marilyn is a weaver of words and a painter of songs. Her lush velvety voice will leave you happily relaxed and filled with hope and comfort. Her songs will follow you home. She's more than a songwriter - - she's a philosopher...

At the tender age of four Marilyn began singing harmony in the church choir in Sarasota, Florida, and by eleven was first chair violinist and performed before an audience of three thousand at the Municipal Auditorium. At 14, her family moved to Michigan and she bought herself a $14 guitar and taught herself to play using the Mel Bay Guitar book. She became a songwriter in high school when assigned the task of an interpretive writing. Armed with a Joan Baez song book, she became a folk singer.

At 19, Marilyn took her new guitar and headed across the country singing in Nebraska, California and Arizona, where she married and had a child before heading back to Michigan as a single mom. The first time her daughter dislocated her arm, it took all the rent money to pay the doctor. That's when it became obvious that despite playing for an hour, live on WDET radio, and bringing in $820, it was time to do more than tend bar and sing for a living to be able to raise a child alone.

Marilyn was dragged, kicking and screaming (not really :-) to college where she did very well, earning a full scholarship to get her Bachelor's degree, proudly paid for her Master's degree while working at the high school, and worked for years to help disadvantaged children (for whom she's still writing raps and songs as an alternative method to learning the state curricula) and their teachers, as a Teacher Consultant. She began teaching college, but moved down, through high school and middle school into elementary school, teaching every grade, including Kindergarten. Marilyn has retired from teaching now that her daughter is on her own and she’s back, with the verve and joy of a caged bird released. Be sure to catch her infectious love for the world.

With Detroit’s own award winning song-writer/guitarist, Jere Stormer on vocals and guitars, they formed the band, QUENCH, with Frank Greenhalgh on bass and Stuart Tucker on drums. You can hear QUENCH in the archives of WDET, on Ann Arbor Alive, or The Open Mike Cafe web radio stations. Or, perhaps you’ll find them at one of Michigan’s Music Festivals.