After 20 years of self-education about vintage soul, blues and R&B I have realized that no matter how much knowledge I've gained about this subject, there will always be so much more to learn. There's always some kick-ass artist from the classic era that I have yet to hear or learn about. I'm generally an "old school" type of gal but I have to admit that the internet has made it infinitely easier to learn about music. It has brought to light voices that most certainly would have been lost forever had we stuck with traditional means of information sharing.
Recently I landed on the voice of Lucille Spann on the internet. She was the wife of Chicago blues legend Otis Spann. In 20 years of research and deep digging how did I miss this voice?! Well, now that I think about it, I guess it's easy to explain. In the pre-internet days we had to rely on either physically finding original records OR the reissues releases of record labels. Not surprisingly, record labels reissued a teeny tiny fraction of music by women in comparison to the boatloads of men's reissues, most especially in the genres of blues, soul & r&b. This is why I know so very much about Otis Spann and pretty much nothing about Lucille Spann. It's a tragedy and a travesty.
Check out these clips....
Yes, yes, yes! Similar with Louis Armstrong's wife Lil Armstrong. She's so good, and was popular in her day, yet relatively forgotten now.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah! Lil Hardin Armstrong was AMAZING!
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