She was married three times: folk singer Rolf Cahn with whom she had a son, Jesse Cahn, also a folk musician; Byron Menendez with whom she had two children Pablo Menéndez and Nina Menéndez; and Irwin Silber.

Jazz critic Leonard Feather called her "Bessie Smith in stereo," and after she opened for him in 1959, Louis Armstrong exclaimed "Did you get that chick? She's a gasser!" and invited her to appear with him on national television's Timex Jazz show. She toured the East Coast with Jack Teagarden, played Chicago with Art Hodes, [a332327], Little Brother Montgomery, [a322322], Otis Spann, Willie Dixon and others, and appeared on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show as a solo guest artist. Other national TV work included The Steve Allen Show, Bobby Troop's Stars of Jazz, Playboy Penthouse, PM East/West and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In the early 1960s, she founded the blues and jazz club [l=Sugar Hill, San Francisco].