Shepley was born in San Francisco, grew up in Providence, RI, and for years has called Cambridge, MA, home. A vocalist since high school, Shepley was lead singer from 1990 to 1995 in Cabaret Enchanté (with Catherine Coleman). The duo performed Coleman’s original music, standards, and French chansons at Scullers Jazz Club, The French Library and Cultural Center, Danny’s Sky Bar (New York City), and live on Ron Della Chiesa’s WGBH radio show, “Music America.” Shepley put her vocal career on the back burner while she was director of communications at Pine Street Inn, New England’s largest homeless shelter, from 1998 to 2007, but she has come back to it with a greater richness of musicianship than ever.
   With a repertoire keyed to her emotional depth and sophisticated wit, Shepley’s delivery is charismatic, self-assured, captivating, and illuminated by her love of the material she sings. Great lyrics are especially important to her. “They should hold up independent of the music, like good poems,” she says. Along with selecting standards that she makes her own, she searches out lesser-known gems, great songs that may have been recorded by only one or two singers: “There are lost songs that deserve to be found, like great books that have gone out of print.”
   No matter if she sings a discovery found on an old Kay Starr LP or if she chooses a song as familiar and wonderful as Gershwin’s “I Can’t Get Started,” she always has her finger right on the emotional pulse of a song—and she can make that song swing!