Joanna Stingray is a native of Los Angeles, California. As a young musician, Stingray was a pop vocalist who released her U.S. 12-inch, 4-track debut, "Beverly Hills Brat" in 1983. In 1984, aged 23, Stingray travelled to Leningrad as a tourist with her sister, who was studying in London had an opportunity to take a trip to visit the Soviet Union for one week. There she was introduced to Boris Grebenshchikov of the rock groupAkvarium. Impressed by Grebenshchikov, and other artists' music, Stingray began smuggling the music of underground Soviet rock bands beyond the confines of the Soviet Union. On July 27, 1986, Australian record company Big Time Records, released Red Wave: 4 Underground Bands from the Soviet Union, a double albumconsisting of songs collected and produced by Stingray. Each record side includes songs by one artist and the bands included are Akvarium, Kino, Alisa and Strannye Igry. It was the first release of Russian rock music in the United States. The record caught the attention of popular western arists, among them David Bowie and Andy Warhol. The Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachov also got to know about it; surprised that this music was published by a foreign company, he instructed the minister of culture to ease the publication of music of young Soviet musicians inside the country. Stingray spent most of the decade living in Russia, where she worked variously as a musician, actress and television presenter before returning to the United States in 1995.
Film, stage and television appearances
In 1993 Joanna was cast in the film "Freak", directed by Roman Kachanov. In 1996 she collaborated with Alexandr Lipnitskii to produce "Sunny Days", a documentary film about the life of Viktor Tsoi. On 20 June 1992, Stingray took part in the memorial concert to Viktor Tsoi held at Moscow's Luzhniki stadium. She performed alongside Viktor Sologub, Valery Vinogradov and Aleksandr Vasilyev.
Personal life
Stingray married and divorced the guitarist from the band Kino, Yuri Kasparyan. Her 2nd marriage was with another Russian musician Alexandr Vasilyev in 1991. And the last, current Stingray's husband is architect Richard Best from California. As of 2004, Stingray was the executive director of the Beverly Hills High School Alumni association and working part-time as a real estate agent.
