Pat Blythe – The Women of Blues Revisited, Part I….

I am swamped with another project that is sucking up all my time during the waking hours. I have less than two weeks to complete it and it’s seems to be growing arms and legs I wasn’t expecting. So…..just to rehash a bit of blues history, specifically the ladies, I thought I’d have my editor post this again as many of you have probably not seen it. I wrote three series, Women of Rock, Women of Blues and Women in Song. The Women of Blues was actually inspired by a contemporary whom I saw for the first time a couple of years ago. She had dedicated her latest album to a female blues artist I had never heard of. Read all about her and the women who contributed so, so much to the genre we call the blues. The famous and not so famous. They were tough, talented, single-minded, sexually liberated, passionate and most of them had more balls than the men. Read on, you might even learn something.

Pat Blythe – There’s something about Maria…..

Several weeks ago I found out Maria Muldaur was performing at the venerable Hugh’s Room located in Toronto’s west end. I contacted Jane Harbury to see if it was possible to attend and photograph Maria (somehow I just can’t refer to her as Muldaur). It was a Richard Flohil event and through him I received permission.  (Thank you Jane and Richard).

Pat Blythe: Women and the Blues…The Saga Continues

It’s Tuesday night and I have just been diagnosed with a severe case of bronchitis. Shit!!!! Not what I need right now. Tired and hacking up a lung or two the doc has just put me on some mighty powerful antibiotics. I take them for five days but they remain in my system for two weeks. I’m in London staying at my mom’s and seeing to a customer and their installation so I have no time to whinge. (….and Dr. T., if you’re reading this I was forced to go to a walk-in clinic by my sister which is why this is the first you’re hearing about this.) So, now that diatribe is over, on to the column….short and sweet.

Pat Blythe: The Women of Blues

Prologue….

Anyone heard of Memphis Minnie? How about Ida Cox, Victoria Spivey, Lucille Hegamin, Julia Lee or Maxine Sullivan? Me neither. How about Bessie Smith, Etta James, Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin, Big Momma Thornton, Dinah Washington or even Janis Joplin. The latter are a smattering of the ladies most frequently thought of or mentioned when we think of great female blues singers….the former, not so much.