Singer | All About Blues Music

WILLIE MAE FORD SMITH

Born into a Baptist family in Rolling Fork, Mississippi in 1904, Willie Mae sang everything from hymns to work-songs and Blues, but when she joined with her three sisters they were a sensation in the world of Gospel music. She was discovered as a teenager at The Baptist Convention and was later taken up by…

Ruby Turner

Ruby’s warm and emotional voice lends itself to Gospel and Soul as well as the Blues. Capable of depicting such extremes of joy and pain in her performances, she engages with her audience to produce a very special kind of empathy. Born in Montego Bay, Jamaica but a brought up in Birmingham, England she is…

ELLA FITZGERALD

‘The First Lady of Song’ won a talent show at The Apollo in 1934. After fronting Chick Webb’s orchestra, she had hits with Louis Jordan‘s band and The Delta Rhythm Boys. Working with be-bop star Dizzie Gillespie, she developed her ‘scat’ singing with her influential 1945 recording of ‘Flying Home’, but when she recorded The…

VICTORIA SPIVEY

Victoria Spivey was one of the Blues Divas who dominated the market for ‘Race Music‘ in the 20’s, but her talents as a businesswoman, songwriter and performer kept her in the business all her life. Born in Houston in 1906, Victoria Regina Spivey was brought up surrounded by music, as her father had a successful…

JIMMY RUSHING

‘Mister Five-by-Five’ was probably the loudest Blues Shouter of them all. Fronting the Count Basie Orchestra, Jimmy Rushing was still capable of injecting great emotional force into his performances at a volume that barely needed a microphone! His careful phrasing brought the Blues into the repertiore of swing bands as Count Basie’s front-man; his up-tempo…

BIG JOE TURNER

When the Blues made the transition from its rural roots in the Delta to the urban boogie-woogie and Jump-blues that made people dance, (and which morphed into Rock’n’Roll), nobody had a bigger voice than Big Joe Turner. A Blues shouter from Kansas City, Big Joe crossed many musical boundaries an the course of a career…

MA RAINEY

Ma Rainey could make a good claim to be the first Blues singer. Not blessed with good looks, but always dressed to kill, she could belt out a Blues song with power and passion. In 1902, aged about 16, she was touring the South singing in a Minstrel Show with her parents. One evening near…

ETTA JAMES

Etta James was a feisty lady with a sultry and passionate voice equally at home with R&B dance tunes and soulful ballads. Her striking good looks, with almond eyes and short blonde hair, made her a publicists dream, even though she had enough personal problems in her long career to give any manager screaming nightmares.…