Greatest Female Blues Vocals
In no particular order:
Etta James Damn Your Eyes
Her deep, guttural voice was made for the blues.
Her deep, guttural voice was made for the blues.
Mamie Smith Crazy Blues
She was the first to break the color barrier with this song in 1920. However, white pressure groups demanded that all of her backing musicians were white.
Ma Rainey See See Rider, with Louis Armstrong
Paramount marketed her extensively, calling her the "Mother of the Blues", the "Songbird of the South", the "Gold-Neck Woman of the Blues" and the "Paramount Wildcat".
No less a legend than Janis Joplin considered Bessie Smith the world's greatest blues singer. She became known as "The Empress of the Blues, so clearly, there's room for one more title. She died in a car crash.
Born as a result of her mother’s rape, she led a tragic life. Ethel was never shown any love by her family. She married into what would become an abusive relationship at the age of 13. In a classic frying pan/fire situation she left her husband and would eventually end up falling in love with a drug addict. But she persevered and became a star of recording and film (pre-television). She was the first to record Stormy Weather.
Known as 'The Duchess' her iconic performance of Strange Fruit, a harrowing song about the lynching of blacks in the Deep South, which led to widespread condemnation that nearly ended her career.
Like so many black singers from the South, she grew up singing gospel. But she then went on to become the forerunner of rock and roll. Better yet, she could whale (and wail, for that matter) on her Fender electric guitar.
Ruth Brown had 16 top ten hits from 1949 to 1955 for Atlantic Records, which became known as 'The House that Ruth Built.'
She was a huge influence on Bonnie Raitt, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as the 'Queen Mother of the Blues' in 1993.
Watkins backed B.B. King and James Brown but never achieved fame or fortune for herself. But following twenty years of silence, she made a classic comeback with a brilliant album aptly titled 'Back in Business.' And she could play that red Fender Mustang like nobody's business.
Bonnie Raitt is a staple on the KNKX blues show weekend nights out of Seattle. She played with Howlin' Wolf and Willy Dixon during the '60s club scene, and she's yet another outstanding female guitarist who can sing. Her 10th album Nick of Time (1989) sold six million copies.
Martin Luther King once called her 'The Queen of American Folk Music'. She also sang the blues, and with good reason.
From Wikipedia: she influenced many of the key figures of the folk revival of that time, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples, and Janis Joplin.
From Wikipedia:
Ball was described in USA Today as "a sensation, saucy singer and superb pianist... where Texas stomp-rock and Louisiana blues-swamp meet."[2] The Boston Globe described her music as "an irresistible celebratory blend of rollicking, two-fisted New Orleans piano, Louisiana swamp rock, and smoldering Texas blues from a contemporary storyteller."[3]
From Wikipedia:
She is the daughter of Texas blues guitarist and singer Johnny Copeland.[4] She began singing at an early age and her first public performance was at the Cotton Club when she was about 10.[5] She began to pursue a singing career in earnest at age 16. When her father's health began to decline, he took Shemekia on tour as his opening act, which helped establish her name on the blues circuit.
Born as Lizzie Douglas, she was a New Orleans girl to the core,
until at age 13, she ran away from home to live on Beale Street, in Memphis. She played on street corners for most of her teenage years, occasionally returning to her family's farm when she ran out of money.[4] Her sidewalk performances led to a tour of the South with the Ringling Brothers Circus from 1916 to 1920.[5] She then went back to Beale Street, with its thriving blues scene, and made her living by playing guitar and singing, supplementing her income with sex work (at that time, it was not uncommon for female performers to turn to sex work out of financial need).[6]
Partner in the Tedeschi Trucks Band (pictured above), she was raised as a Catholic, but found little inspiration in church choirs, and turned instead to the African-American Baptist churches, where she felt the music was 'less repressed and more like a celebration of God. She's been in bands since she was 13.
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