Women have been at the dawn of the blues since Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey were singing about hard knocks and tough love in smoky bars. This book gives an overview of the early days of the blues and its development from the Mississippi Delta to the hometown of electric blues, Chicago, to becoming the global musical movement it is today. Includes: Ma Rainey, Shemekia Copeland, Rosetta Tharpe, Mavis Staples, Etta James, Janis Joplin, Bonnie Raitt, Susan Tedeschi, Big Mama Thornton, Koko Taylor, Bessie Smith, Kyla Brox, Dana Gillespie, Dona Oxford, Connie Lush, Ruthie Foster and many more... Written by acclaimed music writer Zoe Howe, and featuring Chicago Blues Hall of Fame inductee Jennifer Noble's exclusive colour photos, this book explores the pioneers who created the blues from the 1920s to today, as well as providing interviews with around 30 extraordinary women who make the blues happen now.
 
Reviews
“Jennifer Noble is an insightful blues enthusiast whose wealth of knowledge of blues music is second to none. Through this rare book about women in blues, the reader encounters many of the talented ladies Jennifer has met on her photographic journey – from Irma Thomas to Ivy Ford – illuminated with wonderfully informative dialogue from the artists themselves to complement her photos. This is not just another coffee table book: it is a must read for all blues aficionados!”

“…the book is produced in hardback, and as the notes say ‘The book gives an overview of the early days of the blues and its development from the Mississippi delta to Chicago to the global music it is today’. So for all of us who Iove the blues this book is a must have. One of the best produced books on the blues you’ll ever find.” -- Peta Clack ― Blues in Britain Magazine

“Jennifer Noble’s photographs make you fall in love with these Blues Women. She captures the essence of their soul. I have fallen in love with them as well and was so inspired that I started Women of the Blues Foundation. Thank you, Jennifer Noble for bringing me into a world of extraordinary women.” -- Lyn Orman Weiss ― Women in Blues Foundation

“Jennifer Noble has been photographing blues in Chicago for more than 30 years so she knows a thing or two about the scene. In 50 Women in the Blues, she highlights–you guessed it–50 women of the blues–from the legendary trailblazers like Memphis Minnie, Big Mama Thorton, Sippie Wallace and Bessie Smith to present day blues queens such as Shemekia Copeland, Joanna Connor, Thornetta Davis, Mary Lane, Sister Cookie and many, many more. Even I, who likes to think I know everything there is to know about the women who sing the blues, met a few women I didn’t know in this delightful book.”

“…the book is produced in hardback, and as the notes say ‘The book gives an overview of the early days of the blues and its development from the Mississippi delta to Chicago to the global music it is today’. So for all of us who love the blues this book is a must have. One of the best produced books on the blues you’ll ever find.”  -- Peter Clack ― Blues in Britain Magazine
Review
 
Given the times we live in, it’s a little surprising there haven’t been more books focusing on blueswomen. Whether this book of photographs and (relatively brief) essays and interviews , featuring the work of photographer Jennifer Noble, with assistance from British author and freelance writer Zoe Howe, represents part of a larger movement to correct that oversight remains to be seen, but it’s a tantalizing prospect. Noble’s photographs are straightforward and unpretentious, she’s not a high art photographer but a portraitist, interested in capturing the spirit of the moment and in these cases the spirit and brio of her subjects – appropriately the dominant mood is joyful: this music is a celebration – of life, of womanly power, of perseverance and survival. In recent years, authors such as Angela Y. Davis (Blues Legacies and Black Feminism)… have produced important works that have focused on the social significance of women’s voices and performance styles in the blues, and although it does not aspire to the scope of such works, this collection of photographs should nonetheless be recognized as another, in what one hopes is an ongoing initiative, scholarly and otherwise, to recognize, study and celebrate this vital facet of living blues history. After all, in a very real sense, the history of the blues is women’s history as well – or as Zoe Howe reminds us in her introduction: “Years of oppression couldn’t stop them. Violence couldn’t cow them. Religion didn’t suppress them and social conditioning couldn’t inhibit them… a woman is the blues and the blues is a woman.” -- David Whiteis ― Living Blues Magazine
 
208 pages