A Bad Woman Feeling Good: Blues and the Women Who Sang Them

An exciting lineage of women singers--originating with Ma Rainey and her protégée Bessie Smith--shaped the blues, launching it as a powerful, expressive vehicle of emotional liberation. Along with their successors Billie Holiday, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, and Janis Joplin, they injected a dose of reality into the often trivial world of popular song, bringing their message of higher expectations and broader horizons to their audiences. These women passed their image, their rhythms, and their toughness on to the next generation of blues women, which has its contemporary incarnation in singers like Bonnie Raitt and Lucinda Williams (with whom the author has done an in-depth interview). Buzzy Jackson combines biography, an appreciation of music, and a sweeping view of American history to illuminate the pivotal role of blues women in a powerful musical tradition. Musician Thomas Dorsey said, "The blues is a good woman feeling bad." But these women show by their style that he had it backward: The blues is a bad woman feeling good.

"Originally conceived as a U.C.-Berkeley doctoral dissertation, this thoughtful, fluent book contends that female blues singers, through their creative innovations, artistic successes and unconventional lifestyles, have inspired American women to express their individuality for decades. Jackson shows how high-spirited blues exponents Ma Rainey (later deemed the 'Godmother of the Blues') and Bessie Smith ('a legend in her own time') set the stage in the early 20th century by celebrating their unconventionality, bisexuality, and racial pride; they were also instrumental in opening up the recording industry to African-Americans. Then came Billie Holiday, who radiated a darker but equally rebellious persona; Etta James, who flaunted her sexuality and reveled in scandalous behavior; Aretha Franklin, who championed the rights of women and minorities; and Janis Joplin and Tina Turner, who carried the blues idiom into the world of rock 'n' roll. Other singers Jackson discusses (Joni Mitchell, Lucinda Williams, Whitney Houston, Patti Smith, Lauryn Hill, Courtney Love) are not necessarily blues singers in the traditional sense, but they are, she says, the inheritors of the blues women's legacy of female empowerment. By celebrating the genre's 'bad women' as forces for positive social change, Jackson gives blues fans a refreshing new perspective. Illus. not seen by PW. Agent, Gary Morris. (Feb.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Jackson presents a history of American women blues singers from the earliest days of the music to the present. She describes how Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith launched the blues as an expressive vehicle of emotional liberation. She then traces their legacy through the lives and careers of singers such as Billie Holliday, Aretha Franklin, and Janis Joplin. The final chapter focuses on contemporary artists Lucinda Williams and Courtney Love. The text is based upon the author's doctoral dissertation (history) at the U. of California, Berkeley.
Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

The women who broke the rules, creating their own legacy of how to live and sing the blues.

Buzzy Jackson received her Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley, where she lives. This is her first book.