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In 1971, an executive for Warner-Reprise reflecting on the marketability of pretty women and guitars quipped, “They’re shaped the same!” Condescending, if not insulting to the 21st century ear, that remark was, sadly, an accurate appraisal of the paucity of creditable female guitar players at the time. How things change! Today, there is a rapidly growing list of ladies who can wield an axe with the best of them. Enter one of the finest examples of the phenomenon – Joanna Connor.
Born in Brooklyn, New York on August 31, 1962, Connor was raised from the age of 4 in Worcester, Massachusetts by her mother who inadvertently got the young Joanna hooked on the blues by introducing her to an extensive blues record collection and taking the youngster to shows by people like Taj Mahal, Bonnie Raitt and Buddy Guy. Just 7 when she first picked up the guitar, Connor only got serious about the instrument at 15 when her guitar teacher showed her how to play slide. “I always marched to the beat of a different drum,” says Connor who began singing and playing with various Worcester groups while still in high school. She turned professional in 1981.
In October of 1984, Connor stepped off a greyhound bus in Chicago and proceeded to storm blues central, her hard-edged fret work dazzling doubters and turning heads in hallowed Windy City clubs such as Kingston Mines and the Checkerboard Lounge.
By 1988, she was a band leader, out on her own touring extensively throughout the US, Canada, Japan and Europe. She was so popular in Germany that she was featured more than once on national television.
Beginning in 1989 with Believe It! (Blind Pig), Connor released a string of scintillating CDs boiling over with razor-sharp guitar and gutsy vocals that had the press thumbing through their thesauruses in search of superlatives. “Connor simply kicks ass, ripping off a variety of scorching solos,” wrote Pulse! “A truly dazzling guitarist with a flaming slide attack,” chimed in Billboard. “A slide guitarist of ferocious intensity,” opined Living Blues “A soprano Johnny Winter,” declared Playboy. Fans salivated in anticipation of the next release.
But real-life concerns intervened. A single mom in need of a steady income to raise her two children, Connor made the difficult decision to take a break from music and go back to school to become a teacher. “I’d been doing it a really long time and it felt like it really wasn’t going anywhere,” she says explaining her feelings at the time “It’s a tough way to make a living and I wanted to give my kids the best of everything.”
In 2002, Connor returned to the studio to record The Joanna Connor Band (M. C. Records), an adventurous departure that brought more world music textures and original song writing to her blues. Recently, she has focused her energy on her forte, touring as a live performer.
An exhilarating artist who still possesses the palpable passion that made the blues so compelling in the first place, Joanna Connor is essential listening. www.joannaconnorband.com
Ken Wright
