Inspiration for Danielia Cotton's career in music came from her mother, a little-known jazz singer, and two aunts. The three women sang as a trio at church, igniting a passion for 'big belting' in Cotton. Outside of church, though, Danielia's musical tastes leaned in an unlikely direction. AC/DC, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, and Todd Rundgren-not hip-hop or R&B-formed the soundtrack to Cotton's youth, and shreds of the hard-rock bands' fury and of Rundgren's literate sensitivity shade her songs. Early adulthood found Cotton and her electric guitar abandoning her hometown of Hopewell, New Jersey for Manhattan. There she played the rock club circuit, eventually befriending Kevin Salem of the band Chocolate Genius. Salem produced Small White Town, a promising disc full of hurt and hope that, as she finds her footing within the indie scene, should beget a string of powerful others, such as her highly acclaimed 2008 release, Rare Child.