Who Was The First Female Blues Singer
Bobbi Humphrey born 1950 The first female African-American instrumentalist to sign with Blue Note this Dallas-born flautist joined the label in 1971 at the behest of label president and producer.
Who was the first female blues singer. Smith CollectionGadoGetty Images Known as The Empress of the Blues Bessie Smith was the best and most famous female singer of the 1920s. And she sure did for Etta could beg scream and shout and was dubbed the first queen of soul some 10 years before Aretha Franklin. A strong independent woman and a powerful vocalist who could sing in both jazz and blues styles Smith was.
Janis Joplin was one of the first female artists to break the girl singer mold in folk and pop music in the mid-60s. She also performed at Woodstock in 1969. At 28 years old we are definitely going to see a lot more of what Samantha Fish has to offer.
John William Long John Baldry was a 6ft 7in mover and shaker who helped ignite the British blues boom in the early 1960s. Watkins spent the early 1960s performing rhythm guitar with Piano Red the Interns. The next year popular vaudeville and musical comedy star Nora Bayes recorded the Homesickness Blues becoming the first woman to record a song with blues in the title.
MAMIE SMITH née Robinson. Thanks to Mamie Smith female blues artists were in hot demand and one of the first to make her mark was Ma Rainey aka the Mother of the Blues Born Gertrude Pridgett in Columbus Georgia in 1886 Ma Rainey began performing in her early teens and would eventually form the brilliantly monikered Rainey and Rainey Assassinators of the Blues with her husband William Rainey in 1914. Several more recordings with blues in the title were made in 1915.
Women in Blues Throughout History The first blues song recorded by a black female vocalist was sung by Mamie Smith in 1920. 2 Etta James. Born in 1883 in either New York or Cincinnati there are no official records on this she was multitalented working as a singer dancer and pianist in vaudeville acts and even becoming a movie actress later in life.
Her breakthrough came after performing with Big Brother and The Holding Company at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. While she can speed pick and tap with the best of them its her. Beverly Guitar Watkins Inspired by the successful female blues musicians of the 1930s and 40s Beverly Guitar Watkins taught herself to play the guitar by listening to her mothers records.