Female Blues Singers – Various Artists – Complete Recorded Works – Vol 10 H/I/J (1923-1929)

DOCD-5514 Female Blues Singers Vol 10 H/I/J 1923 – 1929 Genres: Blues, Classic Blues, Female Blues, Jazz. Informative booklet notes by David Evans Detailed discography. The main fascinating element to this volume of fourteen is the fact that several artists featured apparently recorded under names other than their familiar ones, although the strangest name here, Bertha Idaho, was her real one. Nellie Hite is in fact Mattie Hite. Jane Howard is the same artist as Miss Frankie who can be heard on volume six of this series. Mary Jackson could possibly have been Ethel Riddley and Elnora Johnson may well be non-other than Alberta Hunter. Even the accompanists provide some intrigue with the “unknown” guitarist with Zaidee Jackson probably being Bobby Leecan and the outstanding pianist referred to as Mr Johnson by Sadie Jackson is almost certainly by James P. Johnson. The female blues singers who made records in the 1920s and early 1930 are often simplistically characterized as “vaudeville” artists. This series of fourteen volumes, concentrating on singers who made only a handful of recordings and who mostly remain biographically obscure, reveals the true diversity of the female artists of this era. While the vaudeville theatres and travelling tent shows were probably the main venues for most of them, some sang in cabarets and others in low-down barrelhouses. Some were vaudeville veterans whose careers stretched back to the teens or even earlier, while others were young new arrivals on the stage. Yet others sound as though they had just emerged from a rough saloon and house party environment. Some created their own excellent song material, while others were merely the vehicles for ambitious song-writers who often also served as their accompanists. Some are obscure and many leave us wishing they had been more extensively recorded. Whatever the case, they fill out the picture of the blues of this era and present plenty of fine musical moments and material of great interest.