As part of the ongoing Amoeblog series honoring Women's History Month (Which ends today, March 31st), this blog is the second part of the two celebrating women blues artists. The first, earlier this week, focused on women from the classic blues era (circa 1920s), while this one takes a look/listen at women blues artists spanning the decades since.


"When you in trouble blues is a girl's best friend" sings Koko Taylor on her 1975 recording of "Blues Never Die" (audio above). Taylor, like many of the longtime blues women here (including Big Mama Thornton, whose track "Bumble Bee Blues" with Muddy Waters Band is also above) have also been categorized over the years as rhythm and blues, rock & roll, and jazz. The late great Etta James, who we lost just two months ago, is an example of a blues artist who was also classified as jazz, rhythm & blues, rock n roll, and gospel too. A 1992 concert version of her singing "I'd Rather Go Blind" - written by Ellington Jordan and co-credited to Billy Foster but first recorded by Etta James in 1968 - appears above. As we know, the moving song has in the years since become a standard for countless artists to cover.

1) E-40 Block Brochure: Welcome to the Soil 1, 2 & 3 (Heavy On Grind)

2) DJ Premier & Bumpy Knuckles Kolexxxion (Gracie)

3) GIft Of Gab The Next Logical Progression  (Quannum Projects)

4) Quakers Quakers (Stones Throw)

5) THEESatisfaction awE naturalE LP (Sub Pop)

Most artists, as their lifelong music careers develop, tend to taper off in terms creating new material. Not longtime Vallejo rapper/Bay legend E-40 whose latest release in another multi-album release - the triple CD set Block Brochure: Welcome to the Soil 1, 2 & 3 that offers a stunning total of 60 new tracks! (You can buy as three individual CDs or as a single packaged 3CD set for $34.98,including free shipping, from Amoeba..com. ) 60 new tracks is a lot of new music from the ever innovative Bay Area legend whose been putting it down for a quarter of a century now and showing no signs of ever slowing down. In that same unique position (especially for rap music in which careers don't traditionally last beyond one decade) is fellow Bay Area rap pioneer Too $hort who is similarly prolific and even longer in the game - clocking three decades into his long successful career. Recently Too $hort released his 19th album  No Trespassing (Dangerous Music) on which coincidentally E-40 makes a cameo.  Another longtime Bay Area hip-hop artist with a new release is the Quannum Projects' Gift of Gab who just relased The Next Logical Progression.  Check music sample of this and all the chart entries in the videos below.

              
YOKO ONO CUT PIECE by TECHNOLOGOS

In observance of the ongoing Amoeblog series honoring Women's History Month, this blog salutes women blues singers from the classic blues era. I will also post a second part celebrating women blues artists from later decades. But for now, I am focusing on the classic blues era of a century ago. It was a time when these women artists were pioneers by being both among the very first black singers and  blues artists to be recorded.

This first wave of recorded female blues was spearheaded by such American music legends as Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, Mamie Smith (no relation to Bessie), and of course Ma Rainey.  Born in 1886, Ma Rainey earned the title “Mother of the Blues” for being instrumental in bringing the music to the public first. She is credited with both influencing all other female blues singers that came after her and with being the first to perform the blues on stage as popular entertainment. This she did when, at the turn of the century, she first incorporated blues into her broader vaudeville act that was built around comedy bits and show songs of the time. As legend has it Rainey would close every show with a song about a woman losing her man that she called “The Blues." Rainey, along with her husband Pa Rainey, is credited with discovering Bessie Smith on one of her early tours.

Madonna's new album MDNA, which has been available via pre-order from Amoeba for the past five weeks, has finally been released (as of yesterday) by Interscope following a much hyped lead-in over the past couple of months that included her high profile Super Bowl halftime performance with new album collaborators Nicki Minaj, M.I.A., and LMFAO, plus a series of advance tracks & snippets off the new 12 track album (the Deluxe CD version has 16 tracks) being circulated online to both positive and negative reviews by bloggers and journalists - all eager to weigh in on the 53 year old Material Girl's latest album (her twelfth) in a 30 year career that is rarely too far from some degree of controversy.

In the latest Madonna controversy producer/DJ  deadmau5 just accused Madonna, via a Twitter attack, of promoting the drug ecstasy by using the term "molly" (slang for E) during concert banter at the Ultra Music Festival in Miami on Saturday. (read full story here) She flatly denies it although she does sing "MDMA" on one of the new album tracks whose title MDNA looks like MDMA (the technical term for the illegal club drug) at first glance. Of course regardless of whatever the case may be all deadmau5 essentially did was feed into the publicity machine and help further promote Madonna's new album and tour with this latest wave of free publicity for an artist whose career thrives off controversy.