Joanna Connor

Joanna Connor - Slidetime - 1998 - Blind Pig Records

Great Chicago-style electric blues with a roots flavour from the Brooklyn born slide guitarist and vocalist, Joanna Connor. An underrated performer with a great voice, and a marvellous slide guitar technique, Joanna has played with Buddy Guy and A.C. Reed during her career, and can be classified as another "blues conservationist". This is an excellent blues rock album from Joanna, who is to be admired for her passion for the blues, and her "uncommercial" album releases. This album of all new material contains some modern electric blues, but the album retains the traditional Chicago blues style at all times. Her vocals and remarkable guitar playing is faultless, and guitarists Anthony Palmer, and Ron Johnson contribute some fine playing as well. This is a lady who deserves a wider audience, and A.O.O.F.C would recommend you buy her superb "Believe It! " album. For similar blues style music, check out Debbie Davies' "Blues Blast" album @ DEBDAV/BBLST

TRACKS

Nothin' But The Blues
My Papa
You Don't Love Me
Got To Have You
Slide On In
My Man
Free Free Woman
Money Blues
It's Not The Rock
At The Club
Pea Vine Blues

All songs composed by Joanna Connor, except "It's Not the Rock" by Joanna Connor, & Boyd Martin

MUSICIANS

Joanna Connor (vocals, guitar, slide guitar)
Anthony Palmer, Ron Johnson (guitar)
Vic Jackson (bass)
Boyd Martin (drums)
Jovaughn Mixon, Darnell Wilcher, Andrea Variames (background vocals)

REVIEW

Joanna Connor's fourth album for Blind Pig finds her still working solidly in blues-rock territory with plenty of her blistering slide guitar work well to the fore. Joanna penned all 11 of the tunes here, co-writing one of them with guitarist Ron Johnson and the other with drummer Boyd Martin; her songwriting chops show considerable added depth and improvement on this go round. Still keeping her sound in the time-honored road-band format of two guitars, bass and drums. She brings aboard background vocals on "Slide It In," "Got To Have You" and "Pea Vine Blues," the latter also featuring some nice fingerpicked guitar from Ron Johnson. Connors' guitar positively blisters on "My Man," "Free Free Woman" and others, making this one of her strongest outings. © Cub Koda, All Music Guide



BIO

What sets Joanna Connor apart from the rest of the pack of guitar-playing female blues singers is her skill on the instrument. Even though Connor has become an accomplished singer over time, her first love was guitar playing, and it shows in her live shows and on her recordings. Brooklyn-born, Massachusetts-raised Joanna Connor was drawn to the Chicago blues scene like a bee to a half-full soda can. Connor, a fiery guitarist raised in the 1970s -- when rock & roll was all over the mass media -- just wanted to play blues. She was born August 31, 1962, in Brooklyn, N.Y., and raised by her mother in Worcester, MA. She benefitted from her mother's huge collection of blues and jazz recordings, and a young Connor was taken to see people like Taj Mahal, Bonnie Raitt, Ry Cooder and Buddy Guy in concert. Connor got her first guitar at age seven. When she was 16, she began singing in Worcester-area bands, and when she was 22, she moved to Chicago. Soon after her arrival in 1984, she began sitting in with Chicago regulars like James Cotton, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy and A.C. Reed. She hooked up with Johnny Littlejohn's group for a short time before being asked by Dion Payton to join his 43rd Street Blues Band. She performed with Payton at the 1987 Chicago Blues Festival. Later that year, she was ready to put her own band together. Her 1989 debut for the Blind Pig label, Believe It!, got her out of Chicago clubs and into clubs and festivals around the U.S., Canada and Europe. Her other albums include 1992's Fight for Blind Pig (the title track a Luther Allison tune), Living on the Road (1993) and Rock and Roll Gypsy (1995), the latter two for the Ruf Records label. Slidetime on Blind Pig followed in 1998 and Nothing But the Blues, a live recording of a 1999 show in Germany, appeared on the German Inakustik label in 2001. Connor left Blind Pig and signed to small indie label M.C. in 2002. Her first release for her new label, The Joanna Connor Band, finds Connor expanding her sound a bit in an attempt to reach a more mainstream audience. Connor has blossomed into a gifted blues songwriter. Her songwriting talents, strongly influenced by greats like Luther Allison, will insure that she stays in the blues spotlight for years to come. © Richard Skelly, All Music Guide



MORE ABOUT JOANNA CONNOR

Born on the 31 August 1962, New York City, New York, USA, Joanna Connor was raised in Worcester, Massachusetts and began playing guitar while still a small child. Encouraged by her mother, a blues enthusiast, her guitar playing skills proved to be exceptional and in her teenage years she frequently sat in with visiting blues artists. By the mid-80s she had relocated to Chicago where she continued sitting in, this time with major figures who appreciated her instrumental ability. By the late 80s she had played in bands led by Johnny Littlejohn and Dion Payton, performing with the latter at the 1987 Chicago Blues Festival. Forming her own band was the next logical step and this she did late in 1987. By the end of the decade, owing to her records, she was extending her fanbase nationwide. In addition to playing and singing, Joanna also writes her own material, developing this facet of her talent through the 90s and into the early 00s. Her singing has been likened to that of Bonnie Raitt, one of the visiting artists with whom she played back in Worcester. Her strongest asset is her outstanding guitar playing, which allies sometimes savage intensity with a remarkable level of technical virtuosity. [ Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze ]