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Feb 11, 2019 · Ten of blues influential female guitars players. Often underrated or unappreciated, several principle female innovators of blues music are equipped with a staggering amount of raw talent, undeniable moxie, and impressionable guitar skills.
- Victoria Shaffer
- Elisabeth Cotten
- Memphis Minnie
- Etta Baker
- Sister Rosetta Tharpe
- Jessie Mae Hemphill
- Odetta
- Beverly „Guitar“ Watkins
- Peggy „Lady Bo“ Jones
- Rory Block
- Bonnie Raitt
In terms of year of birth, this left-handed guitarist playing a guitar strung in the classic right-handed style is the oldest traceable blues female guitarist, and her story is incredible. Originally from North Carolina, she worked from the age of nine and it was around that time that she also began playing and writing her own songs. She got marrie...
The first female guitar star of her time and a very emancipated lady with all that entailed. Before she became one, she was making a living on the corners of Memphis' famed Beale Street with her guitar (and when that wasn't enough, allegedly with her own body). She was married three times, each time to musicians she worked with who usually broke up...
The guitarist from North Carolina is the personification of the so-called Piedmont blues, a style linked to guitar ragtime characterised by perfect fingerpicking. She mastered the six-string and twelve-string guitars and the five-string banjo, and late in life was not afraid of the electric guitar. Etta was never a music professional, instead, she ...
Not for nothing is she called the Godmother of Rock 'n' Roll. Although she played other guitars for most of her life, thanks to several crucial video recordings, she is mostly remembered with a snow-white Gibson SG, which the company now produces as her signature model. She started playing guitar at the age of six and was considered a child prodigy...
This native of the small town of Como, one of the epicentres of the style known as Hill Country Blues, may not have been a virtuoso, but there's one important thing no one can deny her. If you look into this blues sub-genre, whose most famous representatives are R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, and which inspired for example The Black Keys' earl...
She was one of the biggest stars of the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s, whose broad repertoire contained gospel and folk songs alongside blues, and she had a unique way of accompanying herself on guitar. Her fans included Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin. Odetta was aiming for a professional singing career from an early age, even training in opera s...
One of the first female electric guitar "pyrotechnicians" in the blues. She started as a bassist, then switched to guitar, and although she never left the music scene (she worked with B.B. King, James Brown, and Ray Charles, among many "no-name" groups and artists), it wasn't until 1999 that she made her solo debut with the ironically titled album ...
The New York Harlem native earned the nickname "Lady Bo" as a member of the band of famous electric bluesman and rock 'n' roll pioneer Bo Diddley – he recruited the young girl in 1957 when he happened to see her walking down the street with her guitar (which she had only been playing for two years at the time). She stayed with Diddley until 1963 bu...
Without exaggeration, a guitar virtuoso and arguably the best still-active interpreter of early guitar blues styles, especially those of the Mississippi Delta – which is why she is also one of the notable slide guitarists. She emerged from the heart of the folk and blues revival in the 1960s – her father had a store right in New York's Greenwich Vi...
We recently wrote about her in connection with her excellent slide technique on electric guitar. Although Bonnie Raitt has been transcending the blues genre all her life – sometimes turning to pop, sometimes to folk, rock, maybe even to country –she always returns to the blues because she feels it and knows it like few others. Even B.B. King was bl...
Mar 18, 2022 · Carolyn Wonderland, award-winning Texas guitar slinger, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, became the first ever female lead guitar player for blues legend John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. She’s also the first female guitar maestro to sign with Alligator Records.
Samantha Fish. Samantha is an American singer/songwriter and guitarist who excels at playing the blues, but that’s not her only genre of music. She is an all round entertainer and her live shows incorporate Blues, Country, Bluegrass, Funk and Rock. Her first instrument was the drums, but at 15 she switched to the guitar.
- Bonnie Raitt. Bonnie Raitt toes the line between soft rock and blues with a talent no one can deny. With Eric Clapton as one of her teachers, it's no wonder she can mix together modern and classic blues with ease.
- Susan Tedeschi. If you like a classic rock/blues blend, Susan Tedeschi is a must hear. Her educational background in music helps give her an unique sound.
- Ana Popovic. There's nothing quite like a smooth blues guitarist. Ana Popovic is a worldwide blues sensation and has been nominated for numerous blues awards.
- Joanne Shaw Taylor. Blues isn't always supposed to be soft or pretty. With Joanne Shaw Taylor, you get hardcore, rough-around-the-edges blues. Her no-apologies style of playing is reminiscent of Stevie Ray Vaughn.
May 16, 2024 · Memphis Minnie’s unparalleled prowess with the guitar set her apart in a male-dominated blues scene. Born Lizzie Douglas, she defied societal expectations for women at the time, charting a path that proved women could not only perform the blues but could master its instruments.
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Mar 2, 2024 · Lizzie “Memphis Minnie” Douglas was the first prominent female guitarist in the blues, playing with a virtuosic swagger that helped place her among the most popular blues artists of the 1930s...
