Joanna Connor

Joanna Connor - Living on the Road - 1993 - Inak Records

"Living on the Road" was recorded live in 1993 from a performance at the Franz Club in Berlin. Brooklyn born Joanna Connor is strongly influenced by great artists like Etta James, Ann Peebles, Aretha Franklin, Luther Allison, Buddy Guy, Jeff Beck, Bonnie Raitt, Ry Cooder, Lowell George and Johnny Winter, and shades of all these great artists' musical styles can be heard in Joanna's music. The album features three originals and seven covers. The songs range from roadhouse rockers like Delbert McClinton's "My Baby's Loving" and lohnny Copeland's "Boogie Woogie Nighthawk" to songs from the woman's perspective such as "Good Woman Gone Bad,"' 'Wildfire Woman" and her own "lalapeno Mama."~ She also sings her heart out on "At the Dark End of the Street." Her band has been with her for a few years now, and it sounds like it. Joanna is a great slide guitarist in the style of Rory Block, and Bonnie Raitt. Her first gig was with the late, great slide guitarist, Johnny Littlejohn, and she has jammed with Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, James Cotton, and many more great artists. "Living on the Road" is a great album of soul blues, funk, and R&B and is well worth buying, as is her great debut album, "Believe It!". Check out Joanna's "Slidetime" album @ JOACON/SLTME

TRACKS/ COMPOSERS

1 My Baby's Lovin' - McClinton
2 Good Woman Gone Bad
3 The Sky Is Crying - James, Lewis, Robinson
4 Jalapeno Mama
5 Forgotten Woman
6 Midnight Sunrise
7 Wildfire Woman
8 Boogie Woogie Nighthawk
9 The Dark End of the Street - Moman, Penn
10 Going Back Home

BAND

Joanna Connor - Guitar, Slide Guitar, Vocals
Stan Mixon - Bass
Larry Ortega - Drums

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 ]