Jo-Ann Kelly

I went to the local used record store today. After dithering a bit over some lps I'd passed on last time I was in the store I decided to check out what they had in the blues bins. Thats when I found this record. At first it didn't look very promising. I'd never heard of her and the picture on the front looked like about a million others gracing the covers of singer-songwriter albums from the seventies. But it was in the blues section so I flipped it over and read the liner notes. A word of advice here, be careful when reading the liner notes of albums from the sixties from major labels they are headache inducing. These, written by Stephen Calt*, seemed obsessed with explaining that although the artist wasn't black she was a genuine blues singer. He even goes as far to quote Big Bill Broonzy who'd been dead about ten years when this album was recorded:

"There is even a few white men who can play the blues....Sometimes we blues singers would call them Negoes too, bu they wouldn't ind at all...they could play as well as a Negro, but they couldn't sing the blues. They could way the blues and words and some of the blus they could sing was the kind that we call big-city blues and dressed-up blues, but not the real Mississippi blues."

Got that? Good. Well check out this from the final paragraph:

"Or lay on Bronnzy's load of jive and call her a Negro. She wouldn't mind at all."

And, upon reading that, my head exploded. But the liner notes did say that she played guitar and was influenced by Memphis Minnie. So I figured it would be worth a listen so I bought it.

I have to say, weird slightly racist liner notes aside this is a great album. Kelly has a real blues voice. Calt compares her to Janis Joplin which for a female blues singer of the time was probably inevitable. Kelly though sings the country blues backing herself up on guitar, a different form than Joplin. All the cuts on this album were recorded live in various clubs in England where Kelly was performing. Her guitar playing here is propulsive, driving each song rhythmically so you can feel it in your bones.

Online references to her seem to be few but, aside from a wikipedia article, there is some good info available. Stefan Wirz's discography page on her is a thorough and includes a pdf of a 1978 article on her written by Stefan Grossman. In the Grossman article kelly is quoted talking about her career and the recording of several of her albums. She mentions being asked to join Canned Heat and how she regretted passing on that.

According to the wikipedia article on her, Kelly died from the after effects of a brain tumor in 1990. This is a great shame as she was the genuine deal, a talented performer immersed the music.

*Calt appears to be one of those people on hand for the rediscovery of the old country blues musicians in the early 1960s. He's written several books including controversial biographies of Charley Patton and Skip James.