CD-Charts Position 41
Average Rating:

.

All the Way

CD-Charts > Music > Classic Female Singers
by: Etta James

Release Date
If someone had told me a fortnight ago that I would be playing and waxing lyrical about an Etta James CD that included songs by Simply Red, John Lennon, James Brown and Prince then I would have told them that they were bonkers. How wrong I would have been!

The CD is just great. The reworking of some classic songs works really well. Some of tracks have a jazzy feel - like the title track All The Way; some are on the funky side - Stop On By and Holding Back The Years; Strung Out is a blues track in classic Etta style; the rest are ballads wonderfully sung and beautifully arranged. Etta's version of Lennon's Imagine is one of the best I have heard for a long time and even Prince's Purple Rain works well. The pick of the tracks for me ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 42
Average Rating:

.

The Ultimate Collection

CD-Charts > Music > Classic Female Singers
by: Janis Joplin

Release Date February 21, 2003
Though one shouldn't buy 'Greatest Hits' or 'Collections', but instead try to hear the songs in their original context, there is enough rare and difficult-to-acquire material on here to justify splashing out. The closer alone, 'Farewell Song', is worth the asking price: a stomping pseudo-ballad which knocks any remaining spots off other female blues singers of the time. There are cuts from all her most important records, 'Pearl', Cheap Thrills' and earlier Big Brother efforts, and much of this material will be familiar to anyone who purchased the remastered, reissued, extended 'Greatest Hits' three years ago. All 12 songs re-appear here in one form or another, with an improved live version of 'Maybe', inferior takes on 'Bye, Bye, Baby' and ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 43
Average Rating:

.

Woman's Trouble Blues

CD-Charts > Music > Classic Female Singers
by: Bessie Smith

Release Date February 21, 2000
Though one shouldn't buy 'Greatest Hits' or 'Collections', but instead try to hear the songs in their original context, there is enough rare and difficult-to-acquire material on here to justify splashing out. The closer alone, 'Farewell Song', is worth the asking price: a stomping pseudo-ballad which knocks any remaining spots off other female blues singers of the time. There are cuts from all her most important records, 'Pearl', Cheap Thrills' and earlier Big Brother efforts, and much of this material will be familiar to anyone who purchased the remastered, reissued, extended 'Greatest Hits' three years ago. All 12 songs re-appear here in one form or another, with an improved live version of 'Maybe', inferior takes on 'Bye, Bye, Baby' and ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 44
Average Rating:

.

Pickin' the Blues

CD-Charts > Music > Classic Female Singers
by: Memphis Minnie

Release Date July 24, 2000
Big Bill Broonzy said that Memphis Minnie played guitar as well as any man he'd ever heard.

This CD features some instrumentals as well as some accompanied songs. Some - maybe the best ones - are duets with Minnie's (one time) husband Kansas Joe. In these the guitar playing is quite delightful, one guitar playing rhythm, the other filling some great licks and riffs. Historically Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe were important as pioneers of the new National (steel-bodied) guitar.

As usual, Catfish have packaged this album nicely and got their usual good sound quality.

CD-Charts Position 45
Average Rating:

.

The Genuine Article: The Best Of Etta James

CD-Charts > Music > Classic Female Singers
by: Etta James

Release Date March 20, 1999
Big Bill Broonzy said that Memphis Minnie played guitar as well as any man he'd ever heard.

This CD features some instrumentals as well as some accompanied songs. Some - maybe the best ones - are duets with Minnie's (one time) husband Kansas Joe. In these the guitar playing is quite delightful, one guitar playing rhythm, the other filling some great licks and riffs. Historically Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe were important as pioneers of the new National (steel-bodied) guitar.

As usual, Catfish have packaged this album nicely and got their usual good sound quality.

CD-Charts Position 46
Average Rating:

.

The Empress of the Blues: the Ultimate Collection

CD-Charts > Music > Classic Female Singers
by: Bessie Smith

Release Date April 28, 2003
Big Bill Broonzy said that Memphis Minnie played guitar as well as any man he'd ever heard.

This CD features some instrumentals as well as some accompanied songs. Some - maybe the best ones - are duets with Minnie's (one time) husband Kansas Joe. In these the guitar playing is quite delightful, one guitar playing rhythm, the other filling some great licks and riffs. Historically Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe were important as pioneers of the new National (steel-bodied) guitar.

As usual, Catfish have packaged this album nicely and got their usual good sound quality.

CD-Charts Position 47
Average Rating:

.

Big Mama Thornton With the Muddy Waters Blues Band 1966

CD-Charts > Music > Classic Female Singers
by: Willie Mae 'Big Mama' Thornton

Release Date July 27, 2004
Big Bill Broonzy said that Memphis Minnie played guitar as well as any man he'd ever heard.

This CD features some instrumentals as well as some accompanied songs. Some - maybe the best ones - are duets with Minnie's (one time) husband Kansas Joe. In these the guitar playing is quite delightful, one guitar playing rhythm, the other filling some great licks and riffs. Historically Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe were important as pioneers of the new National (steel-bodied) guitar.

As usual, Catfish have packaged this album nicely and got their usual good sound quality.

CD-Charts Position 48
Average Rating:

.

Seven Year Itch

CD-Charts > Music > Classic Female Singers
by: Etta James

Release Date October 01, 1999
This is a gem of an album. Recorded in the 1980s, a mature Etta delivers the goods backed by Nashville session musicians (including the usual suspects such as Steve Cropper and Jim Horn) who get it absolutely right. This is great R&B: songs of love and lust, in turns sexy, sassy and sad. And quite simply, a track like "Damn your eyes" is sheer perfection: it doesn't get any better than this. If you love R&B this CD has to be in your collection. If you don't, this would be a great place to start finding out why some of us do! Oh yeah, come to mama!

If you like this CD, try and catch a gig by Taka Boom. She's the younger sister of disco diva Chaka Khan, and lives and works in the UK. Taka is amazingly sexy, a phenomenal singer - and ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 49
Average Rating:

.

Earth Shaker

CD-Charts > Music > Classic Female Singers
by: Koko Taylor

Release Date October 01, 1999
There is barely a single weak moment on Koko Taylor's 1978 LP.
Sure, her remakes of "I'm A Man" (as "I'm A Woman") and "Wang Dang Doodle" are somewhat less than innovative, but just about everything else is just plain great. And Taylor is backed by an excellent little combo which includes guitarists Johnny Moore and Sammy Lawhorn, saxist Abb Locke, and the legendary Joe "Pinetop" Perkins on the piano.

Nobody can really cover Howlin' Wolf and get away with it, but Koko Taylor does as good as anybody on a really solid "Spoonful", and her swaggering renditions of Mel London's "Cut You Loose" and the saucy Irma Thomas-single "You Can Have My Husband" are just magnificent.
"Let The Good Times Roll" and "Hey Bartender" still pop ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 50
Average Rating:

.

Let's Roll

CD-Charts > Music > Classic Female Singers
by: Etta James

Release Date May 05, 2003
Imagine... the Rolling Stones and Tina Turner at their very best... then you get the one and only legendary Etta James! Etta's classic 2003 release Let's Roll confirmed her true status as 'Matriarch of the Blues' which she proudly recorded with her sons Donto playing drums and Sametto on bass. Etta has been thrilling audiences for the last 50 years ever since she recorded the R&B hit 'Roll with me Henry' back in 1955, so it's no wonder that she was inducted into the 'Rock & Roll Hall of Fame' in 1993. Etta's voice tells you she is a survivor from all that life can throw at you as endorsed in her autobiography 'Rage To Survive'.

'Somebody To Love' has Etta delivering the classic line... 'Love ain't no good 'til you give it away'! ... Read More: