Teresa Trull

In summer 2011, Trull moved from the Bay Area to New Zealand. She and New Zealand native Michaela Evans started a business named "New Zealand Horse Help", which specializes in a range of services including behavioral problem solving, starting and training young horses, and advanced skills. In November 2012, Trull and Evans were invited to participate in New Zealand's "Equidays" to demonstrate their training techniques to improve the relationship between horse and rider, and in particular their specialized methods of connecting with an unbroken horse. Trull and New Zealand entertainer Jools Topp also performed musically at the two day event, held at the Mystery Creek Events Centre.

They released a second album together in 1997, titled Playtime on the Slowbaby label, and embarked on a 40-city tour in support of that recording. Like their previous album, Playtime was produced by Trull, with production assistance from Higbie.

Trull is also an experienced dressage rider. In 1996, she and Creeky Routson formed a company named "Wild Ride" that specialized in choreography for freestyle dressage competitions, in which horses perform high-level dressage to music. Years later, Trull and Routson were asked by Kate van Orden, a University of California, Berkeley musicologist to take on the role of equestrian choreographers for van Orden's reconstruction of the 17th century equestrian extravaganza known as Le Carrousel du Roi, which was originally created to honor the marriage of King Louis XIII of France. The first production of this reconstructed "equestrian ballet" was presented on June 9 and 10, 2000 at the city of Walnut Creek, California's Heather Farm Park. Nineteen dancing horses were shared by fifteen riders in extravagant costumes, accompanied by Robert Ballard's 1612 music on period instruments. Following on the success of the event in 2000, it was presented again in June 2012, with new elements and refinements.

The result was the album Country Blessed, released in 1989 on Olivia's Second Wave label. They wrote many of the lyrics together, and shared lead vocals as well as performing two duets. The album also featured many musical guests, including Mike Marshall, Darol Anger, Barbara Higbie, Vicki Randle, John Bucchino, and Laurie Lewis.

In addition to horses, Trull loves birds and other animals. She has bred and shown English budgies. In 1989, she said she owned 35 birds, including a parrot. In a 2004 interview, Trull said she owned two horses, two dogs, two birds, two house cats, a barn cat, twelve guinea hens, and four goats.

In 1988, Trull was producing an album for Hunter Davis and she hired women's music icon Cris Williamson to sing a duet with Davis, to help with the marketing of the LP. Even though they had been good friends for 10 years, that was the first time that Williamson had worked with Trull in the role of producer. After Davis's album Torn was completed, Williamson approached Trull to make a country album together. Both women had spent their childhoods in rural, agricultural areas with a love of country music.

Trull has described herself as "a total sports junkie." She was invited to sing the national anthem at a Golden State Warriors basketball game on December 4, 1988. The game was sold-out, with sixteen thousand people in the arena. She described the evening as "one of the most incredible music experiences" in her life, and she received a standing ovation for the performance, as well as the opportunity to sit behind the team bench.

In 1988, Trull's hometown of Durham, NC surprised her with a "This Is Your Life" type of gala, at which she was presented a key to the city and a special citizen's award from the mayor.

In 1987, Trull toured as a background singer with The Bonnie Hayes Band as the opening act for Huey Lewis and the News on a national tour that included stadium-sized audiences. Trull described the experience as "a real eye opener….What I saw was a lifestyle that I didn’t want any part of. You become a marketable product. You make decisions based on business and not on music."

After the tour with Hayes and Lewis ended in 1987, Trull became disillusioned with the music business. She took a break from performing, focusing instead on producing music and training horses. Trull has always had a love of animals, particularly horses. Around this time, the manager of an Arabian horse farm in Los Angeles gave Trull a horse as a gift in return for Trull having taught her learning-challenged child to sing. Trull went looking for a place to keep the horse in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she lived. The last site that Trull visited was a small breeding ranch and she became friends with the owner. Having apprenticed in the horse training business while also pursuing her music career, eventually Trull became the full-time ranch manager and horse trainer.

In 1986, Trull released a CD on Redwood Records titled A Step Away. Trull wrote or co-wrote six of the nine songs and also produced the recording. The album was intentionally more pop-oriented than her prior recordings, in an attempt to appeal to a broader audience than the traditional women's music community. It was recorded at Ocean Way Studios in Los Angeles and featured vocalists Bonnie Hayes and Vicki Randle. Hayes also wrote or co-wrote two of the songs, including "Rosalie" which was originally to be recorded by Huey Lewis. Lewis turned down the song and so Trull decided to use it on her album, and it has become one of Trull's signature songs. Veteran record producer Stewart Levine called A Step Away "one of the best producing efforts he'd ever heard for its limited budget." The CD sold out the first 10,000 copies within a month and the recording industry trade magazine Cash Box included A Step Away as a "Featured Pick" in November 1986. This was the last solo album released by Trull; her subsequent CDs have been collaborative efforts with Barbara Higbie and Cris Williamson.

For her production work on Deidre McCalla's album Don't Doubt It, Trull was nominated for the 1985 New York Music Awards Best Producer of an Independent Album. She was nominated for the same award again in 1989. Trull was also described by the San Francisco Bay Guardian as "probably the best 'alternative' record producer in the Bay Area."

Trull and Higbie's first album together Unexpected was released on Olivia's Second Wave subsidiary label in 1983. Trull also acted as producer on this recording, with a budget of about $10,000. Trull and Higbie toured across the U.S. in support of this album, and a song from Unexpected ("Tell The Truth") was taken to space by an American astronaut. Of this album, a Boston Globe reporter wrote: it "is a wildly and sometimes wonderfully disparate collection of mostly original tunes that speak primarily about ladies, love, and letting go." It was also included in the Boston Globe's Guide to Best Albums of 1983.

Teresa Trull met Barbara Higbie at a rodeo in Reno, Nevada in July 1982. They were on the same bill together and Trull admired Higbie's fiddle playing and musicianship. In August, the two musicians played together at a party and received a standing ovation after their first song, so they decided to see where the collaboration would take them. Their musical styles were quite different, with Higbie performing primarily in New Age and jazz genres, and Trull emphasizing gospel- and R&B-influenced sounds.

Trull left the Olivia collective around 1981, citing a "difference in philosophy." She was a budding producer and wanted Olivia's recordings to be of high technicianship, and she was willing to work with men. At the time, Olivia president Judy Dlugacz wanted to continue to depend on the markets the company had always used and to remain separatist. Even though she resigned her administrative position with Olivia, Trull continued to record with the company's subsidiary label, Second Wave Records.

Olivia released a second Trull LP in 1980 titled Let It Be Known. This album also contains overtly lesbian and feminist lyrics ("There's A Light" and "Every Woman"), but the musical styles are funk, jazz, and pop. Guest musicians included some well-known artists from within the women's music community, such as Julie Homi, Linda Tillery, Ellen Seeling and Jean Fineberg from the group Deuce, as well as mainstream artists such as Sheila E. on drums and percussion.

Trull and Higbie broke up their musical and personal relationship in the mid-1980s, and both pursued solo careers. They reunited again for a performance at the 1991 Michigan Women's Music Festival and received a standing ovation from the 10,000 women in attendance, which inspired the pair to tour again beginning in 1992.

Teresa Trull began writing songs as a teenager, describing herself at that time as "a completely self-taught singer/songwriter from the country." Her first album featured six of her compositions. On her second album, two of the songs were co-written by Trull and Ray Obiedo, who lived next door to Trull in East Oakland, California at the time. Trull had asked Obiedo to write a song with her for her upcoming LP and he agreed. This marked the beginning of a songwriting partnership between Trull and Obiedo that lasted 5 years (1980-1985) and resulted in approximately 50 songs co-written with Obiedo. The most commercially successful songs written by this pair were recorded in 1983 by The Whispers on their gold album Love for Love: the title track and "Try It Again".

Trull is openly lesbian. She was linked romantically with Barbara Higbie, although that relationship ended in the mid-1980s and Higbie has since married a man.

Teresa Trull is an American female singer, musician, songwriter, and record producer from Durham, North Carolina. She is recognized as a pioneer in Women's music, with her debut album The Ways a Woman Can Be released on Olivia Records in 1977.

Trull's first album with Olivia was The Ways A Woman Can Be released in 1977. It was Olivia's fifth LP release and two singles were released as well. The album's style is primarily folk-rock with R&B, gospel, and country influences, and contains several songs with overt lesbian and/or feminist lyrics, such as "Woman-Loving Women" and "Don't Say Sister (Until You Mean It)." Six of the album's eight songs were composed by Trull, most of them written when she was between the ages of 16 and 20.

Also in 1977, Olivia released the compilation album Lesbian Concentrate in response to Anita Bryant's anti-gay crusade. Two Trull performances were included on the LP: "Prove It On Me Blues" (composed by Gertrude "Ma" Rainey) and "Woman-Loving Women" (composed by Trull).

Trull left home at age sixteen, after her mother died. During high school, she played guitar in a band. At a school talent show, Trull substituted on vocals for an ill bandmate on a day that a rock band was in attendance. Soon afterwards, Trull started attending Duke University on a full scholarship to study chemistry and intended to become a researcher. She quickly became disillusioned with what she witnessed in research labs, so four weeks into her freshman year of college when members of Ed's Bush Band asked her to tour with them, she jumped at the chance to earn a living by singing. She played in rock & roll groups in the early 1970s on the East Coast and Southern United States. At age nineteen, Trull relocated to New York City.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Trull frequently toured with jazz pianist Julie Homi. One Canadian concert reviewer wrote: "Singer Teresa Trull and pianist Julie Homi both showed the type of talent that should have them all over the record charts and gossip mags, but because they have chosen to work entirely in the world of 'women's music,' they generally play in front of dedicated cults only."