Mmm, so you don't like her. So what. I spent one hour with her in my 
audio prfessor's studio watching her do melancholy baby into a hand 
held 441 and will always wonder if I should have accepted the slug of 
Southern Comfort she offered me (I didn't)...

I never even thought of Bessie in regard to Janis - Janis was unique. 
But I was 17 so who knew what she was tring to do except express 
herself!

I'll just bet you think Jimi Hendrix was a poor imitation of some old 
blues guitarist too and if he had lived would be inconsequential.

If you had touched as many lives as she did it wouldn't matter when you 
died. And by this kind of post you merely invite flaming responses! If 
you don't like her then so what? I don't like Glenn Gould, so what?

we were talking about a silly joke I made about the name McGehee... 
sorry I brought it up...

But this thread died almost as long ago too.

Lou Judson • Intuitive Audio
415-883-2689

On Apr 20, 2006, at 7:19 PM, steven c wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Roger and Allison Kulp" <[log in to unmask]>
>> Screaming can be done well.I have always liked her version of "Ball 
>> and
> Chain".Both Merle Haggard,and The Grateful Dead did this song up right 
>  many
> times.Ramblin' Jack Elliot is pretty good,too. Roger
>>   Lou Judson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:  Not to argue, but Bobby 
>> McGee is
> one of the few she did not scream
>> (much anyway!). But Kris Kristofferson wrote it and did it better....
>>
> Well, I'm regularly flamed on several blues e-mail lists because I
> refuse to worship at the "holy Janis" shrine that was created when
> she up and died young (an inevitability for musicians...mebbe I
> shoulda died around 1990?)...but I have always had the impression
> that she was trying to make up for not having a voice with Bessie's
> strength and depth by screaming to try and reach equivalent volume!
> Worse yet, her popularity led to a whole generation of blues-singer-
> wannabes that actually thought that was how blues SHOULD be sung
> (which I had to endure at a few million open stage jams!)...!
>
> Of course, at the time she was one of VERY few singers who even
> thought of attempting a cover of Bessie Smith's style...so there
> was no one at whom one could point and say "Now THAT'S the way
> it should be done!"
>
> I only saw/heard one female blues vocalist who could do justice
> to Bessie Smith...a young black woman in Chicago, Valerie
> Wellington. Sadly, she died WAY too young due to a brain
> aneurysm (32, IIRC) and recorded only one LP.
>
> Steven C. Barr
> (CMFIC "Steven C and the Red Rockets" 1986-2006...)