Book Review: The Irish Slaves: Slavery, Indenture and Contract Labour Among Irish Immigrants by Rhetta Akamatsu

Author Rhetta Akamatsu has a lot of interests, and one of them is blues music. When reading about the blues, the Marietta Georgia native discovered that female blues singers were often overlooked in books written about the music. To help balance the scales, Akamatsu put together T'Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do: Women Blues Singers Old and New, which takes an in-depth look into the lives of blues women from both the early days of the music as well as the contemporary blues scene.

Akamatsu put a lot of research into T'Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do, and she covers an impressive range of blues artists. The first section of the book, titled "The Early Blues Women," includes profiles of classic early era blues singers like Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, Memphis Minnie, and Sippie Wallace, as well as R&B-oriented modern era singers like Ruth Brown and Big Mama Thornton.

The second section of T'Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do covers "Blues Women From The '60s To The Present," offering profiles of old-school blues and R&B artists like Etta James and Irma Thomas, as well as traditionally-oriented contemporary blues singers like Marcia Ball and Saffire (the Uppity Blues Women), along with more pop-and-rock-oriented performers like Bonnie Raitt and Janis Joplin, among others.

Eighteen women are covered in the pages of T'Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do, a long overdue effort to put the significant and influential contributions of female blues artists in their proper context.

 

When I first heard of Rhetta Akamatsu's new book T'aint Nobody's Business If I Do: Women Blues Singers Old and New I was intrigued. The book chronicles the lives and struggles of the great female blues singers in the last century.

I like blues music; the rhythms, feeling and drama behind it. But I had never considered that "women's blues" was something different and distinct from "men's blues" Akamatsu illustrates that it definitely has it's own place. Women's blues is sassier, tougher and more rebellious than the men's blues - not that Muddy Waters and B.B. King are anything to sneeze at. But when women got the blues they didn't shrivel in the corner. They stood up and fought back with a strong voice and sometimes with both fists.

The book begins in a casual, conversational , tone that like the women of the blues makes no apologies. It is well researched and chronicles eighteen different blues acts, including Mamie Smith, Etta James, Janis Joplin, the blues group Saffire and many more.

This book made me look at blues music differently. It is more than just a genre or form of music, but carries a feeling that transcends whatever genre was prevalent at the time from Vaudeville to Rock and Roll.

T'aint Nobody's Business gives a good overview of different female blues performers laid out in a way that is both informative and entertaining. But I give one warning - This book definitely left me wanting more. I think it might be time to buy a new CD. I hope I can pick just one.