A Bad Woman Feeling Good: Blues and the Women Who Sing Them

Nonfiction, Entertainment, Music, Music Styles, Jazz & Blues, Blues, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Gender Studies, Women&
Cover of the book A Bad Woman Feeling Good: Blues and the Women Who Sing Them by Buzzy Jackson, W. W. Norton & Company
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Author: Buzzy Jackson ISBN: 9780393346329
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Publication: February 17, 2005
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company Language: English
Author: Buzzy Jackson
ISBN: 9780393346329
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication: February 17, 2005
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English

The women who broke the rules, creating their own legacy of how to live and sing the blues.

An exciting lineage of women singers—originating with Ma Rainey and her protégée Bessie Smith—shaped the blues, launching it as a powerful, expressive vehicle of emotional liberation. Along with their successors Billie Holiday, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, and Janis Joplin, they injected a dose of reality into the often trivial world of popular song, bringing their message of higher expectations and broader horizons to their audiences. These women passed their image, their rhythms, and their toughness on to the next generation of blues women, which has its contemporary incarnation in singers like Bonnie Raitt and Lucinda Williams (with whom the author has done an in-depth interview). Buzzy Jackson combines biography, an appreciation of music, and a sweeping view of American history to illuminate the pivotal role of blues women in a powerful musical tradition. Musician Thomas Dorsey said, "The blues is a good woman feeling bad." But these women show by their style that he had it backward: The blues is a bad woman feeling good.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

The women who broke the rules, creating their own legacy of how to live and sing the blues.

An exciting lineage of women singers—originating with Ma Rainey and her protégée Bessie Smith—shaped the blues, launching it as a powerful, expressive vehicle of emotional liberation. Along with their successors Billie Holiday, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, and Janis Joplin, they injected a dose of reality into the often trivial world of popular song, bringing their message of higher expectations and broader horizons to their audiences. These women passed their image, their rhythms, and their toughness on to the next generation of blues women, which has its contemporary incarnation in singers like Bonnie Raitt and Lucinda Williams (with whom the author has done an in-depth interview). Buzzy Jackson combines biography, an appreciation of music, and a sweeping view of American history to illuminate the pivotal role of blues women in a powerful musical tradition. Musician Thomas Dorsey said, "The blues is a good woman feeling bad." But these women show by their style that he had it backward: The blues is a bad woman feeling good.

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