Female Blues Singers – Various Artists – Complete Recorded Works – Vol 7 G/H (1922-1929)

DOCD-5511 Female Blues Singers Vol 7 G/H 1922 – 1929 Genres: Blues, Classic Blues, Female Blues, Jazz. Informative booklet notes by David Evans Detailed discography.

Another cross section of mainly vaudeville style blues, this volume features, among others, two important names from blues / jazz history; Fannie May Goosby who was one of the first two blues singers to be recorded in the deep south (the other was Lucille Bogan) and W.C. Handy’s daughter Katherine Handy. There are excellent tracks from Helen Gross and Sadie Green provides the risqué Alley Man and Don’t Wear Your Welcome Out. Accompaniment to this fascinating collection is provided by, amongst others, Clarence Williams, Eddie Heywood, Joe Robichaux, Johnny Dunn and Bob Fuller.

The female blues singers who made records in the 1920s and early 1930 are often simplistically characterized as “vaudeville” artists. This series of fourteen, 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 others 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.