Pat Blythe – Women of Blues Revisited – Part III

Thoughts and ramblings…..

Let me just wander/wonder for a moment. It’s a simply gorgeous day today (Wednesday) and there are way, way too many diatribes written about “he who shall not be shamed”, south of the 49th parallel. Noodling around in amongst what neurons are actually firing is this thought…… What if we all just simply stopped reporting on his every move, his every tweet, his every fart (cause that’s what comes out of his mouth….gas) What if it ALL just completely halted….any mention of his name or his family’s. No Tweets or tweet responses, no Facebook or Facebook sharing, no comedy shows, no “fun” news (i.e. John Oliver), nadda, zip, bupkis….. NOTHING! A complete blackout for say……48 hours. What would we talk about? What exactly are we missing in other news and stories? My curiosity has got the better of me…. what would “he” do. No attention paid, nothing to rail against, no media outlet to harangue, no “fake news” to protest….. I wonder…….and my neurons wander……

Pat Blythe – Women of Blues Revisited – Part II

This piece first ran in DBAWIS just over two years ago.  It all started with the a series called Women in Song, based on a collection of CDs (made in Canada dontcha know) I had rediscovered when cleaning out “stuff”. One thing leads to another, a name is mentioned, I start to poke around, one person leads to another and the next thing you know I’m down, waaaay down the rabbit hole. There are an incalculable number of stories and in one fashion or another, they are all linked. If one had to create a “family tree” of music…..well…..it would be “yuge” and nigh on impossible to follow. Just in our little music community here in Toronto, everybody is “related” somehow. I’m about to embark on another project and meet with an individual who has been around the business so long he is full of stories…..I’m sensing another rabbit hole….

Pat Blythe: Women of Blues 3 – Bessie Smith – The Empress of The Blues

“The blues is not about people knowing you, it’s about you knowing the people.” –– Ma Rainey, (from the HBO movie Bessie)

Pat Blythe: Women of Blues 2 – Ma Rainey – Mother of the Blues

I just finished watching the movie Bessie starring Queen Latifah as Bessie Smith and Mo’nique as Ma Rainey. Suggested watching by Roxanne, my friend and fellow writer, and an excellent recommendation it was. Thank you Rox…. the timing couldn’t be more perfect. A great segue for this column and also for the series. Ma and Bessie were two completely different women singing their own style of the blues together, and apart, one learning from the other and taking the blues to a whole new audience. I’ll start with the groundbreaker.