Blues Guitar Women - Various
available on Amazon
This double disc set is divided into a contemporary disc, definitely more city and electric; and a traditional disc, more country blues and acoustic orientated. There are a number of gems on both discs and though all of the cuts have been released before on various discs there is nothing here that has been overplayed, and there are some great cuts by people who have not received the wide notice of a Rory Block, Memphis Minnie, or Bonnie Raitt; those who thoroughly deserve more notice such as; Alice Stuart, Precious Bryant, or Erja Lyytinen (from Finland). There are no weak cuts on the discs, and they hold together well as good sampler of the range of music these women are playing. You the range from the age and maturity of the great Memphis Minnie and her iconic styling on her rendition of “In My Girlish Days,” to barely out of her teen, Eve Monsees’ sipping it up on “Lonely Lonely Nights,” and all manner of individuals in-between.
This is such a sweeping coverage, and the only unifying theme is woman who play blues guitar that it is difficult to summarize these discs until you change your focus and come at it from a different view. Use these discs as an introduction to a subgenre of the blues that doesn’t quite get the
publicity and may contain many undiscovered gems. All of the women have discs out or are on some other compilations, and yet I venture there are going to be names here you don’t recognize, or recognize but have never heard. Some you might love and others you will disregard, but at least you now have heard what they can or can’t do. For myself there were 9 artists on the 2 discs I hadn’t heard of and 5 I had heard of and never heard; that comes to almost half of the 29 ladies here. No one was heard that wasn’t worth a trip to a club if given the chance, and several would require earthquakes to prevent long trips to clubs if they were in the area. A good education for about 2 hours of listening. A great sampler that has good notes and a number of too underappreciated artists because they are women.