Born Dessie Mae Williams, in West Helena, Arkansas in 1936, she began singing in a Baptist Church choir at an early age, and at 14 she landed a spot on the legendary King Biscuit Time radio program, on KFFA in Helena. Describing her early experiences, Odessa talked about singing in some of the joints around West Helena when she was very young. She described one place where she sometimes slept overnight – in a wheelbarrow where they usually kept coal for the stove in the wintertime. “All of the musicians really watched out for me.”
This 2005 picture was taken at what was then called the Detroit International Jazz Festival. (Since 2006 it has been called the Detroit Jazz Festival.) I think this image really captures her pleasant personage, and she seems almost Queen-like. I loved Odessa’s soft, jazzy style of blues singing. She had a unique voice and delivery. Detroit Metro Times said she “has a voice that sounds like whispers through silk, yet you can still hear and feel every expression, word and phrase. It’s absolutely beautiful.”
In the late 40s and early 50s she sang with a touring carnival show. Another highlight of her early life – she toured with B.B. King from 1959 until 1961. It was B.B. King who gave her her stage name – Odessa Harris. She then lived and performed in Florida for several years, before moving to Detroit in1972, where she sang regularly in the Midwest, until retiring in the late 80s.
She was lured out of retirement in the early 2000s by famous and much-loved Detroit jazz trumpeter Marcus Belgrave (a mentor to many Detroit musicians) and RJ Spangler, drummer, producer, bandleader, manager, and label owner who was then described by the Metro Times as “Detroit’s master career resuscitator of forgotten local jazz and blues greats.” In 2003 Odessa released her first recording in 38 years – The Easy Life, on Eastlawn Records, Spangler’s label.
Odessa and Alberta Adams, Detroit’s original Queen of the Blues were friends, and sometimes sang together in Detroit area gigs. In her latter years Odessa suffered from emphysema and cancer. She died in Detroit of heart failure August 18, 2007.
Like some musicians everywhere, Odessa had periods of more than local recognization and some professional success, but she never “made it big.” However she gave Detroiters and those around the country who heard her sing the blues, a special treat. I will never forget your sweet voice Odessa!
Barbara Ann Heyer, 91, passed away May 8, 2023. She was born on November 30, 1931, in Allen Park, Michigan to Anthony Flaishans and Gertrude (Dasher) Flaishans. Barbara married the love of her life, Ralph Eugene Heyer, on March 27, 1954, in Allen Park, Michigan. June 49 graduate of Lincoln Park HS. Trombone player in the Marching Band. She will be remembered as a loving, devoted wife, beloved mother, dear aunt, and faithful friend. Barbara was a fabulous shopper in both clothing and markets. She excelled in baking, cooking, gardening, and flowers, word puzzles, while maintaining a wonderful home atmosphere. After her son, Brent, entered elementary school, Barbara was an excellent office manager for the S.S. Kresge Company, which evolved into the Kmart Corporation. Her weekly hair salon visits were a must. Barbara was a terrific swing dancer esp. the Driving Blues to tunes like (Going to Kansas City/Sweet Home Chicago). She was affiliated with the Detroit Blues Society for several decades. Instead of going to the High School Prom, Barbara and boyfriend, Ralph, went downtown (Detroit) to the long defunct Flame Show Bar on John R and East Canfield to rock to the sounds of the T-Bone Walker Band. The couple danced on many cruises and ballrooms. My dear darling, save your long-time dance partner a small spot on Heaven’s dance floor.
There are blues music lovers all over the world. Some are casual about it, others are very ardent blues lovers. And people express their love of blues in many ways. But I doubt that anyone has been as intent on pursuing their love of blues – and of dancing to the blues – for as long (over 70 years) as Detroit area couple – Barb and Ralph Heyer. Sadly, with Barb’s passing, their historic run at helping keep the blues alive has been truncated. Barb will truly be missed on the Detroit blues scene, though I do believe that her participation in the blues community will stay alive in our hearts and memories. Our sincere condolences to Ralph and family, and to all who knew Barb.
A couple of years ago I interviewed Barb and Ralph for the Detroit Blues Society’s Blues Notesnewsletter. Here is that piece:
Blues Lovers Extraordinaire – They Just Gotta Dance
Callahan’s Music Hall [Auburn Hills]
I don’t recall when or where I first saw this couple (dancing). It had to have been at a Blues music event. At some point I noticed that they were (dancing) at almost every Blues event I attended. I started taking pictures of them (dancing). And got to know them a little bit. Finally, I just had to find out about all that (dancing). So, I got them to stop (dancing) long enough to answer some questions. Here’s some of what they had to say. – Don Mc Ghee
It was 1947. Two teenagers from Lincoln Park went to Detroit’s Fox Theater on a date. It would be the first time they experienced a live musical performance. The attraction – a young dancing, singing, drumming Sammy Davis Jr, with the Will Mastin Trio. They were wowed! It would turn out to be the first of hundreds of times they would find their way to bars, lounges, halls, show bars, supper clubs, outdoor concerts, music festivals and cruise ships, to hear the music they loved – and, to DANCE! Blues, R & B, Motown and some jazz drew them in. For more than 70 years they’ve been to countless Detroit and southeastern Michigan venues and they’ve caught top acts in Las Vegas, Memphis and Florida. Their names – Ralph and Barb. Both are now 89 years old; Ralph will be 90 in June. Early on they were often drawn to Detroit venues like the Flame Show Bar, the Frolic Supper Club and the Garfield Lounge because those places featured the music they loved.
Jackson MI Blues Festival
They celebrated their June, 1949 graduation from Lincoln Park High School, by going to The Flame (even though the legal drinking age was 21), where they saw T-Bone Walker. “Nobody bothered us, they didn’t question our age,” says Ralph. “T-Bone would play the guitar behind his back, do the splits, playing and singing all the time. He never missed a beat!” (The Flame featured top national African American entertainers. 1949-1963) Barb and Ralph “would go down to The Flame [John R and E. Canfield] on a Friday/Saturday night. It was a mixed crowd and always pretty crowded, but we could still dance some.” It became a favorite. They recall seeing Bull Moose Jackson (a singer & saxophonist out of Cleveland who performed jump blues and had a reputation for bawdy songs like “I Want a Bowlegged Woman”). Ralph adds, “Johnnie Ray used to come around and sing, we liked him a lot.”
The Frolic Show Bar, on John R, was another semi-regular stop in those early days, where they’d see John Lee Hooker. Barb remembers seeing “Wild Bill” Davison, a trumpet player out of Ohio. “They had a lot of different acts there. It was really good music, and we could dance.” Then, across the street to the Garfield Lounge. “But they smoked that funny stuff inside there, so we only went once,” said Ralph. “We would move around a lot. We went to a lot of different places–anywhere there was good Blues or R & B music, and where we could dance,” says Barb, “including the Willis Show Bar.” (Willis and Third Ave jazz bar, 1946-1978)
Hot Blues BBQ Festival [Oxford ]
Early on Barb and Ralph got together with 4 other young married couples and hired a private dance instructor. They met every week at someone’s house for the lessons. As soon as the lesson was over, they would all go out to a club to practice what they had just learned. About a year after the lessons ended, “the other four couples were all divorced,” says Ralph. “We stuck it out.” They have been married for 67 years. Might the dancing be the ticket?
When asked about their love of music and dancing, both give energetic responses. Barb – “We started dancing more in the 60s.” Ralph – “Dancing gives you energy, it just uplifts you, you feel that beat and you just have to start moving. And it relaxes you.” Barb – ” that’s right, you’ve got to start moving when you hear the beat. Music makes you feel happy, good about everything.”
Favorite kind of music and dancing? Ralph: “We can dance to different kinds of music, different steps, but we really like swing dancing. We like that driving Blues music so you can get out there and really swing.” He adds that they also like half time. Neither sings or plays an instrument now, but Barb played trombone in the Lincoln Park H.S. marching band. She performed in the Thanksgiving Day parade and at Thanksgivings Day Detroit Lions games.
In spite of a life filled with dancing, they never entered a dance competition. “We dance for ourselves, for our own enjoyment,” says Barb. “And with the dancing, there was always something to look forward to. And you meet a lot of great people.” Ralph – “Oh yah, We’ve met some real nice people, black & white – Blues enthusiasts, vocalists, dancers. We used to always see Sweet Claudette – talk to her, have a drink. She was really a nice person.” Barb – “We used to hit all the clubs. A lot of them are closed now.” Ralph reflects on Memphis Smoke in Royal Oak: “We used to have some really good times there — a lot of wild times.” (Memphis Smoke featured blues music for many years, 1994-2010)
Barb and Ralph are Detroit (and national) music-loving heroes to me! For over 70 years, from the time they were very young, throughout a very long and active life, they have been strong supporters of many places and musicians that make up our strong musical heritage. Ralph and Barb are a kind of walking, talking (dancing) living history of an important part of the Detroit area music scene – its venues and its artists. Blues in particular:
Chef Chris and His Nairobi Trio (winners of the 2002 IBC band competition) in Ann Arbor
Rev. Robert Jones at the Monroe County Library Black History Concerts
Joe Weaver, Lady Sunshine, Thornetta Davis at Top of the Park in Ann Arbor
Johnnie Bassett and Thornetta at Jazzin’ on Jefferson.
Robert Penn at the casino
Betty Lavette at the Music Menu
Alberta Adams at lots of different places
The Butler Twins at the Greektown Festival & other places
Billy Davis in a park in Lathrup Village and wherever he performed
Peter “Madcat” Ruth at The Ark in Ann Arbor, and in Milford and many other places
At a DBS Blues Challenge event at Dearborn’s Teeny Street Roadhouse Ralph and Barb became DBS members, and have been proud members ever since. Blues Notes is how they learn of Blues music events. And, they go EVERYWHERE! If it’s Blues, with room to dance, Barb and Ralph are going to be there, swinging! I’ve seen them at: John’s Carpet House, on the grass and broken concrete, in Detroit; the DBS Heritage Series at Detroit’s Scarab Club; DBS Blues Challenge events at various locations; Memphis Smoke, Callahan’s, Hastings Street Ballroom, WHFR radio fundraisers [New Place Lounge], Token Lounge, the Plymouth Elks Club Blues series, the Antifreeze Blues Festival, as well as festivals in Oxford, Alpena, Jackson, Kalamazoo and Lansing. They danced on a grassy hill at the Cowpie Blues Festival, outside of Alaska, MI (and didn’t step in any cowpies. I did!) There are many other places where I wasn’t, and they were – dancing, for sure! Including on a catamaran in the Caribbean!
Scarab Club [Detroit]
In addition to trips to Florida, Las Vegas, Memphis, and tours to Europe and other places, Ralph and Barb take cruises – and they… dance! On a cruise to Bermuda, a band really captured their fancy. “We asked them to play “Kansas City” – we really swing to that,” Ralph recalls. “For the rest of the cruise, any time we would be anywhere near the dance floor, no matter what they were playing, the band would stop and swing into Kansas City, and Barb and I would go out on the floor and start swinging.”
In Mexico on a day-trip catamaran cruise: “Everybody was partying down, drinking and dancing. When the boat docked, we hit a night club with a young couple from Denver. The entertainment was a Michael Jackson impersonator. Somehow, after the act, Barb was dancing with “Michael” and I was dancing with his lady. Then Barb was dancing with the Denver guy and I was dancing with his wife. In between, I was dancing heavy with Barb, when lo and behold, in walk 5 beautiful college girls. One of them asked Barb, ‘do you mind if I dance with your husband?’ Barb says no, go ahead. So I swung with her. Then a second girl came up and and then another. Before long, I had to dance with all 5. And I’m fighting a cold. They left, and here come 5 more. And I had to dance with 4 of them. One didn’t dance. Whew! that was OK with me, because my nose was running, and I’m blowing my nose and getting beat up. But we had one hell of a ball. That was probably by far my roughest evening on a dance floor.” My sympathy to Ralph for having suffered such a terrible ordeal.
Old Town Blues Festival [Lansing MI]
Ralph says Doug Wolgat, with the Bluescasters, always liked their dancing “so, he and his wife went out and took a few dance lessons. Now we see them out dancing at different places.” Ralph says his brother was a good dancer, “but if anybody was on the floor dancing a little better than him, he’d sit down. Wouldn’t dance any more. Hell, I never sat down. I watched those really good dancers — I might learn something.” Ralph says that “Barb always had a lot of good moves, and always looked good. She’s still got some moves, but she’s not using them much anymore.” When I asked Ralph if there was anything else he could tell me about all those years with Barb and Blues music and dancing. His response, “We never fell!”
Five or six years ago I saw this guy, busking at the weekly Green Market in Ft. Pierce, FL. He was playing this very different looking and richer, fuller-sounding “guitar.”
Flint Blade
I listened for a while, then asked him his name,what kind of guitar he was playing, and if I could take some pictures. “I’m Flint Blade. It’s not a guitar, it’s a Chapman Stick, and Yes you can take pictures.”
While I’ve heard (and photographed) hundreds of live musical performances over the years, even though the Chapman Stick was created more than over 50 years ago, this was the first time I had seen or heard a Chapman Stick.
The Chapman stick was invented by jazz guitarist Emmett Chapman around 1970. “The Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and has been used on music recordings to play bass lines, melody lines, chords, or textures. Designed as a fully polyphonic chordal instrument, it can also cover several of these musical parts simultaneously.”
“In 1969, Chapman modified his homemade nine-string “Freedom Guitar” to accommodate his “Free Hands” tapping method of playing. This culminated in the creation of the Electric Stick, which he renamed the Chapman Stick. ” [Wikipedia]
First stick prototype
In 1974 Chapman founded Stick Enterprises to manufacture the Stick. More than 6,000 have been produced.
While many people are not familiar with the Stick, according to Wikipedia it has been used by popular groups including Aerosmith, King Crimson, Santana, Dave Matthews Band, Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, Robbie Robertson, Paula Cole, Tangerine Dream, The Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soliel.
Chapman died November 1, 2021, after a long battle with cancer. He was 85.
THANK YOU FLINT BLADE FOR TURNING ME ON TO THESTICKAND THANK YOU EMMETT CHAPMAN FOR CREATING THE STICK!
I’ve learned to love the sound of the Chapman Stick – both when playing old favorites and music that is new & different. Music has a (now, not so) new, wonderful voice!
A Chapman Stick Retreat is being held at Interlochen Center for the Arts, Interlochen, MI Aug 2 – Aug. 5, 2023. Early Registration Fee: $550 (through May 1, 2023) Registration Fee: $600 Registration Deadline: July 26, 2023
This is one of my favorite photos (from among the 25,000 or so photos on my website). As a photographer, I love her tatoos and think this image really highlights, both her tatoos and the power and grace of her music. Incidently, her right arm has a tatoo of a woman playing a violin. (her?) Rebecca is half of a duo known as the Nouveaux Honkies. The other half is Tim O’Donnell, who plays guitar and sings, and writes many of their song. They sometimes add drums, and/or a bass or a steel guitar and become a full band.
Note tatoo of herself on right arm
I was able to catch the Nouveaux Honkies at a bunch of different places along Florida’s Atlantic Coast, from Palm Beach to Fort Pierce, during the years I spent January/February on Hutchinson Island. Sometimes they were a duo, sometimes a 4-piece band. I think one of the things that originally attracted me to them was the blues that was in their music. I grew to enjoy them more as I discovered that there was so much more than Blues in there. They performed in an easygoing, sometimes folksy, but always unique, way – I was hooked! They were one of my favorite bands during those years. I believe I caught them not all that long after they began playing as the Nouveaux Honkies.
Eddie’s and other autographs on Chef John’s wall
I saw them at Chef John’s (unfortunately no longer open), in Jupiter in early February 2011. They were playing with Eddie Kirkland, “The Gypsy of the Blues.” It was a great night of music! In earlier years, Tim had been a part of the backup band Kirkland had often used in the past, when playing in that part of Florida. (Unfortunately Kirkland was killed a couple of weeks later, February 27 on a highway in Homousassa, FL, when his car was hit by a Greyhound bus. (Eddie Kirkland was a storied bluesman. Watch for a separate blog with my captures of him, and stories from people who knew him.)
Rebecca & Eddie Kirkland at Chef John’s
Music started in church for both Rebecca and Tim. She played in the school band, and majored in classical music, playing violin at the University of South Carolina. After playing there for a while she moved to Port Salerno, Florida (a small commercial fishing town). That’s where Tim grew up. Tim started on drums, moved to guitar, and played with several bands, off and on for several years. He says the reason he loves to play “is because it beats hot tar roofing in July.” They met at a local jam, and began playing together – The Nouveaux Honkies were born, and they gradually became popular throughout South Florida. Then for eight or so years they lived in a rebuilt RV and began touring much of the country. Tim says they are now “bi-statual”splitting their time between homes in Knoxville and Port Salerno, in south Florida.
It’s a little hard for me to describe their music – a mix of genres, songs with great stories (written by Tim) sometimes humorous, sung lightheartedly by Rebecca, always tight musically. Rebecca is a warm, always smiling performer, who really seems to have fun while she’s fiddling and singing. She really engages with the audience. Both are great musicians. They often play to, and off, each other, sometimes when doing light-hearted songs like “Big Heart, Hard Head,” and “You’re the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly.” Maybe I should let Tim describe their music – “mother lovin’, country folkin’, blues.” Or perhaps a writer for the Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, says it best – “If Johnny Cash and Freddy King had a baby it would be the Nouveaux Honkies.”
Whatever it is, I love their music and I love photographing them while performing. Rebecca’s ever-present smile and animated performing style elevates the “music for your eyes.” I’m glad Rebecca moved from South Carolina, and certainly agree with Tim – It’s good that he gave up roofing, in July, or any other time.
I haven’t seen the Nouveaux Honkies for five years now, but, as of this posting, Nouveaux Honkies are currently playing South Florida venues, including regularly at Gettin’ Crabby and Pirates Cove in Port Salerano, and weekly at Terra Fermata, in Stuart,
This image is based on a photo taken at the Attic Bar in Hamtramck (a small city surrounded by Detroit) MI, in 2004. It is one of my very first attempts at using software to digitally alter a photograph. And it is one of my favorites. I think it shows Uncle Jessie White in a dignified way, which I believe is well deserved. Uncle Jessie White is a true Detroit legend. While a humble man, I see him as larger than life (as depicted), a giant and respected man on Detroit’s Blues scene.
Uncle Jessie White was born in Terry, Mississippi on September 24, 1920, and he died in Detroit January 29th, 2008. He began playing music when he was 9, a harp, and played off and on until he was about 20 years old, when he stopped music completely. He had a hard life. He began picking cotton when he was 5- years-old, plowed with a mule, worked in a saw mill and in gambling houses. He left it all that when his parents died, moving to Detroit in 1950. In Detroit he made his living as a junkman, collecting discarded items, scraps of all kinds from neighborhoods and wherever else he found it, then sold it to scrap yards.
An excellent documentary – “Uncle Jessie White: Portrait of a Delta Blues Man in Detroit,” 20 years in the making, provides a very personal insight into the life and music of Uncle Jessie. (see link below)
He began playing music again in the 1960’s when Detroit’s Butler Twins (Clarence and Curtis), began coming around playing music. That seems to be the beginning of what developed into Uncle Jessie’s famed weekend-long jams. His house on 29th Street became a place where local musicians came to play music, and young ones came to learn. Uncle Jessie played piano and harmonica, and he sang. The music continued all-night, off and on, from Friday night thru Sunday night. I hear that some people stayed until time to get back to work at the factories on Monday morning. Sometimes well-known musicians in town for a gig would stop by Uncle Jessie’s house jam. There are many stories about those weekends at Uncle Jessie’s house.
Uncle Jessie and the 29th Street Band at the Attic Bar — shelves covered with heirlooms. Jeff Grand – guitar; Betty Brownley – bass; Uncle Jessie White – piano.
Later he had a regular weekly gig at the Attic Bar for about 20 years, until it was sold in 2007. The Attic Bar was really like a Blues joint – nothing fancy, just the Blues. It featured most of the local Blues bands, several nights every week. While he played in other places around town – the Attic Bar was perfect for him. I believe the bar got its name from all the “antique” items scattered on shelves near the ceiling – things that might well have come from grandma’s attic.
One unique thing about Uncle Jessie was his “rig.” It hung around his neck, and held a microphone and his harmonica, leaving his hands free to play the piano. Over the years there were several different versions of the rig. All were made from an incredible array of salvaged materials he gathered while “junking.” One used what appeared to be the handle of a lawn mower to hang the rig around his neck. Another used clamps from car battery charger cables to hold his harmonica to the rig. Then, a bent piece of copper tubing to hold the rig away from his chest. And what seemed to be the plastic bottom of a milk crate, or the wire bottom of shopping cart, as the base of the collection of repurposed items. It looked uncomfortable, but did serve its purpose.
Uncle Jessie at piano, wearing one of his “rigs.”
Uncle Jessie with another “rig.”
The piano at the Attic Bar that Uncle Jessie used is also unique. The stains on the white keys on the left are said to be dried blood from his his fingers, dry and cracked from age. The missing paint and scratches on the board at the back of the keys come from the way he played the piano – often sort of clawing at the keys, rather than the playing in the style that a symphony concert pianist might play.
Piano at the Attic Bar
Uncle Jessie White was a kind and gentle man, with a wry sense of humor – he once described an incident in a gambling joint when a woman who stabbed him in his arm back in the 1930s in Mississippi. He said she was “the stabbingest woman I ever seen.”* I have heard that he used to play the guitar before that, but the injury to his arm forced him to abandon the guitar. A true Delta blues musician, he was sometimes called Detroit’s Godfather of the Blues, because of his influence on the Detroit Blues scene. He encouraged young musicians, allowed them to sit in, and mentored them in other ways.
Uncle Jessie had a profound influence on many Detroit area musicians. Plenty are still playing the Blues because of his mentoring. I produce a monthly live music concert series, Jazz & Blues at the Southfield (MI) library, and was fortunate to book him and his 29th Street Band during the very first year of the series (2005). I never got to know Uncle Jessie very well but I always enjoyed his down-home Blues, and love him for the valuable contributions he made to the music of Detroit.
Uncle Jessie’s 29th Street Band at Attic Bar – Duke Dawson, drums; Jeff Grand, guitar; Betty Brownlee, bass; Uncle Jessie White, piano
Jan. 21, 2023 – A Homegoing parade was held along Beale Street, the fabled Memphis, TN street of music, with Native American drummers, many people following on foot, and led by a horse-drawn white carriage. That was followed by a Blues jam tribute in the Memphis Music Room. These tributes were held for Dennis L. “Butch” Mudbone, (Jan. 6, 1947 – Jan. 2, 2023), a long-time Memphis based Blues musician. He was killed in a car crash on his way home from a Native American Church ceremony in Philadelphia, MS.
Mudbone was a superb Blues musician who I was fortunate enough to see a bunch of times in the Delta, at the King Biscuit Blues Festival in Helena, Arkansas. When I was in Memphis for the International Blues Challenge, I saw him playing on Beale Street. At King Biscuit, on stage, or on the street, he was always one of my favorites. He and his band would set up on the street, and when they began playing, a big crowd would gather, sometimes in a big semi-circle, leaving space for dancers, and for Mudbone to walk around, and play to individuals in the audience, especially women! As he continued to play, the size of the crowd grew. Guitar, vocals, harmonica, keys – he did it all! And he seemed to especially love to play to individuals in the crowd.
King Biscuit Blues Festival, Helena AR 2001
For the last 30+ years, Mudbone played Blues all over the county, including more than 30 times at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, as well as in many countries overseas. Over the years Mudbone opened shows with many famous musicians including B.B. King, James Brown, Albert King, John Lee Hooker, James Cotton and Professor Longhair.
Mudbone was a descendant of the Seneca Nation, born to the France people, and for much of his life he was very involved in Native American cultural and ceremonial activities. He participated for in the Sundance ceremony at Big Mountain, and was an avid traditional dancer and a Roadman for the Native American Church.
The Blues world lost a very special man and a valuable and much-loved maker of Blues music. I offer a respectful and sincere salute to the life and music of Butch Mudbone! And wish for peace and comfort to his family, friends, and his many fans! Let us never forget Butch Mudbone, the man & his music.
Thinking of Alberta Adams today. It is really hard to believe that it has been 4 years since we lost Detroit’s original Queen of the Blues. Alberta Adams died on Christmas morning in 2014, at age 97, after a long period of failing health.
The first time I saw Alberta Adams was at the Detroit Festival of the Arts in the mid-1990s. I didn’t know anything about her – don’t think I had ever heard her name before. She was introduced as Detroit’s Queen of the Blues. I definitely remember thinking – “they got that right!” The next time I saw her was at the 2002 King Biscuit Blues Festival, in Helena, Arkansas. Boy was I proud – Detroit Blues at the Biscuit!
After that I saw her once or twice a year. I always loved her songs, her style and her attitude. Alberta performed in the very first concert in the monthly Jazz & Blues@ the Southfield Library concert series I produce – May, 2005, along with her manager R J Spangler and others. I booked her twice more – in 2008 and 2011. The audience always loved her. Alberta was born as Roberta Louise Osborn on July 26, 1917, in Indianapolis. However, she was raised in Detroit, and by her early teens, she was tap dancing in Hastings Street Clubs. Early on a lucky break at the B & C Club, gave her a chance to move from dancing to singing. She performed in Detroit for years, and later she toured with many well-known bands, and also recorded quite extensively.
Four of Alberta Adams’ CDs are available on line: “Alberta Adams – Born with the Blues”, “Alberta Adams & the rhythm Rockers – I’m on the Move”, “Say Baby Say” and “Detroit is My Home”.
I never did get to know Alberta very well – only spoke to her briefly on occasion. But I loved to hear and see her perform. And, I loved to photograph her during performance. Most of my photos were taken at various Detroit area clubs and other locations, beginning in 2006.
Her birthday parties were always special, with her fans and many of Detroit’s top musicians stopping by to wish her Happy Birthday, often gifting her with cash pinned to her dress.
And, some would sit in with the band to play or sing a tune or two.
with Cee Cee Collins (Paul Carey) Callahan’s Music Hall
Bluesin' musin' 