Mia Katherine Zapata (August 25, 1965 – July 7, 1993) was the lead singer for the Seattle punk band The Gits.
Zapata was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, where she learned to sing and play guitar. Zapata was influenced early on by singers Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Jimmy Reed, Ray Charles, Hank Williams and Sam Cooke.
In the fall of 1986, she helped co-found The Gits while attending Antioch College, a liberal arts college located in Ye...
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Mia Katherine Zapata (August 25, 1965 – July 7, 1993) was the lead singer for the Seattle punk band The Gits.
Zapata was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, where she learned to sing and play guitar. Zapata was influenced early on by singers Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Jimmy Reed, Ray Charles, Hank Williams and Sam Cooke.
In the fall of 1986, she helped co-found The Gits while attending Antioch College, a liberal arts college located in Yellow Springs, Ohio. In 1989, Zapata, along with the rest of The Gits, relocated to Seattle. The band released a series of well-received singles on local indie labels from 1990 to 1991. In 1992, the band released its debut album Frenching the Bully, and received good reviews. Their reputation progressively increased before the band entered the studio in 1993 to begin work on their second album Enter: The Conquering Chicken.
On the morning of July 7, 1993, around 2:00 a.m., Zapata left the Comet Tavern bar in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle,...
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