My grandmother sang, too, and she was really loud. It was this wild kind of singing. I count her among my influences.

She did not stay long. Peter Watrous in an article for the New York Times states: ". She graduated with a degree in mass communications.

Described by critic Gary Giddins as "a singer blessed with an unmistakable timbre and attack [who has] expanded the playing field" by incorporating country blues and folk music into her work Wilson has won two Grammy Awards.