Geneva Norman is the “Geneva” in the Geneva Convention Band. She comes from a very musical family of which the most notables are music funk icon Robert “Kool” Bell of Kool and the Gang and blues and R&B great Betty Wright. The classical composer, Dr. Leslie Adams is also a cousin. She says, “My mother had me singing before I could walk.” She wrote her first song at the age of six which won her school’s composing competition that year.

Geneva studied classical piano and music theory in her early years at the Cleveland Institute of Music and privately under several well known teachers. However, it wasn’t until coming to Chicago and meeting the blues department at The Old Town School of Folk Music that her love affair with the blues began. “I learned to love the blues when I actually had the blues”. The loss of her younger and only sister to cancer left her devastated. She said, “I was so sad and so lost when my sister died I wasn’t sure that I would ever recover.” “The blues helped me express my pain and I’ve loved it ever since.” She still considers herself a student of the blues even though she has played in Baltimore, MD, Cleveland and Columbus Ohio, Clarksdale,MS, Anchorage, AK, Paris, France, Ghana, W. Africa and a number of other places in the US and abroad.

While Geneva sings jazz, gospel,classical and R&B. She says, I feel like Muddy Waters did about this music. “The blues suits me.”

Dan Rice has been playing blues,folk and rock for over 40 years. He was the lead guitarist for the renowned Chicago  band Poor Richard’s Almanac in the early 70’s, where they toured the area with bands-  The Maude’s, The Buckingham’s, Four Days and a Night and TR6 (aka.Chicago Transit Authority aka. Chicago). He has played with such greats as Brian Wilson, Chris Walters,Steve Hutchins and Harlan Terson and continues to find new players in which to play with.

Dan along with Geneva and Pete are founding members of the Chicago based “Geneva Convention Band”.   He has deep roots in both rock and blues and is dedicated to keeping the Chicago based “blues” alive and growing.

Ross Handler is a native Chicagoan, but didn’t discover his love for the blues until later in life. He grew up listening to British invasion albums, cut his teeth pickin guitar down in Nashville, came back to Chicago and played in the classic rock cover band Strange Brew for many years. Only after tracing all his favorite rock musicians back to their original influences did he really discover the blues, and was quickly addicted. Happy to have found some other musicians that also have the bug, he joined up with the Geneva Convention band.