Women of the Calabash were an ensemble vocal and percussion group, inspired by music and instruments from the African diaspora, the Caribbean and the Americas. Founded by Madeleine Yayodele Nelson (1949-2018) in Pennsylvania, 1978, she formed the three-piece group with Marsha Perry Starkes and Mayra Casales. Often crafting their own instruments from wood and gourds, a calabash is a type of gourd also known as a long melon or bottle gourd. This was one of the world's first cultivated plants grown not primarily as food, but for use as containers and instruments for example. The group was New York based so the poster incorporates the Empire State Building. The photograph of the woman in the background was reused in other posters by the Greenwich Mural Workshop between c. 1985 and 1993, (eg. E.119-2011 and E.479-2013) presumably as it had been set for screen printing and kept as a option for others to use in future designs at the community printing workshop.