Tina Weymouth

Martina Michèle Weymouth (/ˈweɪməθ/ WAY-məth; born November 22, 1950) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and a founding member and bassist of the new wave group Talking Heads and its side project Tom Tom Club, which she co-founded with her husband, Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz. In 2002, Weymouth was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Talking Heads.

Weymouth was born November 22, 1950, in Coronado, California, the daughter of Laura Bouchage and U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Ralph Weymouth (1917–2020). Her mother was a French-Breton immigrant from Brittany and her father was American. Weymouth's maternal great-grandfather is Anatole Le Braz, a Breton writer. The third of eight children, her siblings include Lani and Laura Weymouth, who are collaborators in Tina's band Tom Tom Club, and architect Yann Weymouth, the designer of the Salvador Dalí Museum in Florida.

Weymouth was raised in a devout Roman Catholic family. Because of her father's military career, the family relocated frequently: When she was two years old, they moved from San Diego County to Hawaii, and later to France, Belgium, Switzerland, Los Angeles and Iceland, before eventually settling in the Washington, D.C. area. Weymouth described herself as a "very, very shy" child, which she attributed to her family's frequent relocations.

When she was 12, Weymouth joined the Mrs. Tufts’ Potomac English Hand Bell Ringers, an amateur music group directed by Nancy Tufts, and toured with them. At 14, she started to teach herself the guitar. Her early inspirations came from Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul & Mary.

As a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, she met Chris Frantz and David Byrne, who formed a band called the Talking Heads. She began dating Frantz and served as the band's driver. After graduation, the three of them moved to New York City. Since Byrne and Frantz were unable to find a suitable bass guitar player she joined them at the latter's request and began learning and playing the instrument. As a bass player she combined the minimalist art-punk bass lines of groups such as Wire and Pere Ubu with danceable, funk-inflected riffs to provide the bedrock of Talking Heads' signature sound.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.