Female Blues – The Remaining Titles (1921-1928)

This collection casts a wide net to capture two dozen un-reissued recordings by a dozen blues singers whose material has been collected already in this series, but these sides are by no means mere stragglers or stray sides, but in fact feature both well known and obscure vaudeville singers in good excellent form. Lavina Turner provides an energetic performance of When The Rain Turns To Snow and Josie Miles turns in a great bluesy performance on Flora’s Weary Blues. Hazel Myers uses an aggressive, strong vocal for The Man Ain’t Born Who Can Treat Me Like You Do and Laura Smith feels low down as she moans the blues with her Lake Ponchartrain.

The album is rounded off with the rousing Popular Bluff Blues by Rosetta Crawford with bouncy boogie figure piano and buoyant trombone behind a wonderful vocal line and sassy lyrics. After asserting that she has one to a dozen men in various locations around the country Rosetta wags “I ain’t here for my health, I come here to strut my stuff”.

And indeed, some considerable stuff is strutted on this delightful collection of female blues. As with the vast majority of the CDs featuring female classic blues singers in the Document Catalogue, this collection is given double strength by the inclusion of some excellent accompanists including James P. Johnson, Fletcher Henderson, Porter Grainger, Clarence Williamson, Bob Fuller and Cliff Jackson.