Debbie Ross has sung for three U.S. presidents, a vice president and for more brides and grooms and bar patrons than she can remember, and she plans “to do something musically” after retiring later this year from a long career in state government. By day she is still a librarian at the state prison in Jacksonville, and on some nights and weekends – not as many as before – the Debbie Ross Band performs at a local venue or wedding.
The Debbie Ross Band got started 35 years ago and never shows up with a set play list. Their performances include a variety of sounds, including Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, blues, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Fleetwood Mac and more. Lead singer Debbie Ross, raised in Lincoln and now living in Springfield, has learned to read her crowds and understand what they want, but they always end with “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours)” by Stevie Wonder. In its heyday, the band played four or five nights a week. They became regulars at many local places, including bars and the Illinois State Fair.
Today she is at once satisfied with her place in life and eager to continue performing. She has fond memories of growing up in the 1960s in Lincoln, where she said hers was the biggest Black family in a town that was mostly white. “Everybody looked out for everybody and everybody knew my dad,” she says. “He was very well-respected in the town.”
She considers her dad, the late John Adams Ross, her biggest mentor, a man who taught her patience, kindness and strength. He worked at Caterpillar in East Peoria and Morton, also cleaned houses locally and taught her to treat others as she would want to be treated. “I always taught my kids not to look down at janitors or somebody like that,” she now says, because they deserve respect for doing their jobs.
She also chuckles that people express surprise that she’s a librarian because they say, “You’re loud” and don’t fit the stereotype of “that whole quietness comes with the bun-wearing, sensible-shoe-wearing woman.”
Living in Lincoln caused her to grow up listening to “white radio,” she says, referring to a local station. Her dad liked country music (Johnny Cash and Marty Robbins) and her mom liked the blues – all of which led her to try to appeal to a broad range of people and styles once she started performing. “I wanted to keep my options open because I wanted to reach the masses,” she says. “You just can’t pigeonhole yourself into one kind of music.”
In 1992, Bernie Beard of the local Audio-Techni Services company told her Vice President Dan Quayle’s people were looking for a band to play in Decatur’s Central Park. She signed on, and while performing there, “Dan Quayle came over to me and whispered in my ear. He said, what do you think about going on the road with me? And I said, that’s fine, and as long as you pay me, I’m good.”
That is how she found herself traveling under the direction of advance people and the Secret Service, staying ahead of the vice president, and a few years later, playing for presidential candidate Bob Dole and his running mate, Jack Kemp. Describing these political gigs, she said: “I did a lot of them; we were just background. We’d roll into some of these Republican towns [in the Midwest], and they were wondering why they had an all-Black band playing for them. But we won them over with our music. Music has no color. It was a cool experience to be able to do that.”
She mentioned, almost casually, that they played for President George H.W. Bush at the Coliseum at the fairgrounds in 1992, “and we played for W (President George W. Bush) at the Armory” in 2002.
She also sang the national anthem when Barack Obama announced his presidential candidacy outside the Old State Capitol on that frigid day in Springfield February 2007. She sang it again when President Obama spoke in the Hoogland Center nine years later.
Meanwhile, she has been working full time for the state, mostly for Corrections – currently in Jacksonville but previously in Taylorville, Decatur and Logan County – and at ALPLM. “I thank God for those ladies at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library for seeing something in me,” she commented, “that they saw that I could handle the job. I’m very appreciative of that.” With plans to retire from her job soon, Ross intends to sing in settings she calls more laid-back, such as Christmas parties and private gatherings and weddings. She also would like to be of more help to her two grandchildren in Colorado, though she’s not sure how that might work out.
She sounds comfortable with the changes that come with growing older. “I’ve lost a lot of vocal range, and I can’t sing for four hours like I used to,” she says. “There was a time I could hop on stage, and now none of us are hopping anywhere. Now we have arthritis and some strong blood pressure medication. … I’m not ashamed of any of it. I thank God every day before I get out of bed for another day. It took me a long time to get to that, but I’m fine with that. That’s the way life is set up to be.”
Ed Wojcicki has a bachelor’s degree in journalism, reported and edited at print publications for 26 years and now freelances from Springfield.
This article appears in Spring 2025 March 2025.
