SaNa

Just what happens when the faculty leave their offices, classrooms, and laboratories? Do they go home and participate in even more scholarly activity? Are they surrounded by extensive, mahogany-lined librairies with ladders to reach ceiling high collections of books? Maybe they host evening discussion groups in rooms filled with sweet, cherry aroma pipe tobacco? Isn't that what they are suppose to do? After all, aren't professors and scientists basically stodgy workaholics? What exactly do they do?

Well, they do a variety of things. Recently, I received a call from some alumni that had attended an event the evening before. They were really enjoying themselves and listening to James Brown's band perform whem they thought they recognized the bass player as a CAU faculty member. Still, they weren't quite certain. It is sort of like going to the grocery store and unknowingly passing someone that you actually work alongside on a daily basis. What happens is that we become conditioned to seeing someone in a particular light. Then, when we cross paths with them in a different setting, they become almost invivible to us. Well, this was the same type of situation with the band because the bass player was indeed Dr. Sandra Foster.

Several summers ago, Foster decided to try something different and taught herself to play the bass. What she found out was that once she gained her confidence, she was a natural. Now she is a regular on the Atlanta blues scene, performing as a member of the Deacon Blues Band and as a guess musician and vocalist with various other groups, including the band of the Godfather himself, James Brown.

Dr. Vivian Dixon Curtis McDowell, photographer - Clark Atlanta Magazine
- Clark Atlanta Magazine. Spring 2001. Clark Atlanta University

She's a graduate social work teacher by day, but by night SaNa Foster has them groovin' to the sounds of her cool bass guitar and the SaNa Blues Band. Listening to her, it's hard to believe the West Ender has been playing for only two years.
"As a teacher, I have the summers off, and two years ago, I decided to either learn a foreign language or the bass," said Foster, a teacher at Clark Atlanta University. "I didn't want to go to class every day, so I went with the bass. I've always loved it: it's what I hear first."
To keep in top form, Foster knew she would have to commit to rehearsing and playing regularly. "What better way to play regularly than to have your own band?" she said. "We rehearse once a week, and that's helped me learn to play fast."
Catch the band, along with Deacon Blues on harmonica, Friday at the Rib Shack Blues Cafe on Lawrenceville Highway. For information about performances, including gigs next month at Daddy D'z and Fat Matt's Rib Shack, call 404 755-8732.

H. M. Cauley - Nick Arroyo, photographer - Atlanta Journal Constitution - Thursday February 24, 2000 City Life Section

THE 2003 BLUES CHALLANGE was held once again at the Knights of Columbus Hall on Buford Highway in Atlanta GA. The SaNa Blues Band, sponsored by Liz and Lee's Live, was second to perform. They put on quite a show featiring many of SaNa's original songs. Although SaNa did not win the competition, Atlanta Blues Society Co-President, Bill Hudson, was overheard saying how impressed he was with how far SaNa has come since starting her musical career only 4 short years ago.

Randy McNally - - Atlanta Blues Society - Nov/Dec 2003 / Volume 8 / Issue 4 / ISSN 1531-7676