Women Blue: 16 Lost US Femvox Classics

Liner Note Author: Wargirl.
While the title might lead some listeners to expect a set of rare female-led blues acts, this album is actually devoted to delicately downbeat folk-rock and singer/songwriter-oriented material, which is to say these women have the blues, even if they don't always sing the blues. Compiled from a variety of hard-to-find LPs and singles recorded between 1967 and 1973 (with one tune from 1965 interrupting the time line), this disc is a bit more eclectic than similar collections that have appeared in recent years (most notably the excellent Wayfaring Strangers: Ladies from the Canyon); while nearly all these artists are clearly in the same singer/songwriter tradition as Joni Mitchell (who became a role model to thousands of young women with acoustic guitars back in the day), these 16 tunes also dip into trippy jazz-influenced explorations ("Blind as You Are" by Michele), folk with a pronounced country accent (Kathy Smith's "What Nancy Knows"), arty freak folk ("Queen Wilhelmina" by Amanda Trees), Native American percussion and chanting (Leonda's "Zono My Bird"), and even a bit of soulful if dandified blues (Anna Black's "Gloomy Sunday"). While most of these acts are hopelessly obscure, both Bonnie Koloc and Rosalie Sorrels were and are well-known in contemporary folk circles, suggesting the folks who compiled this were going for merit as much as rarity. Lurking somewhere between the hippie era and the dawn of California pseudo-mysticism, there's a lot of purposeful spaciness in the lyrics of these tunes, but the performances are nearly always beautiful and impassioned, and the arrangements confirm these songs came from the days when record making was a craft created by flesh-and-blood musicians. Women Blue is a fine set of unjustly scarce material, and Past and Present would do well to compile a second volume of similar rarities. ~ Mark Deming