Tedeschi served as a judge for the 7th annual Independent Music Awards. Susan Tedeschi was born on November 9, 1970, in Boston, Massachusetts, to a family of Italian ancestry and was raised in Norwell, Massachusetts. She is the daughter of Dick Tedeschi, granddaughter of Nick Tedeschi and great-granddaughter of Angelo Tedeschi, founder of Tedeschi Food Shops, a New England-based supermarket and convenience store chain.

Tedeschi made her public debut as a six-year-old understudy in a Broadway musical. As a youth, she sang for family members and listened to her father’s record collection of old vinyl recordings of musicians such as Mississippi John Hurt and Lightning Hopkins. Raised as a Catholic, she found little inspiration in the church choir and attended predominantly African-American Baptist churches, feeling that the music was “less repressed and more like a celebration of God.” In bands since the age of 13, she formed her first all-original group at 18, the Smokin’ Section, in the nearby town of Scituate.

After graduating from Norwell High School, Tedeschi attended the Berklee College of Music, where she sang in a Gospel choir. She performed show tunes on the Spirit of Boston and received her Bachelor of Music degree in musical composition and performance at age 20. During that time, she began sitting in on blues jams at local venues and immersed herself in the Boston music scene.