CAN BLUE MEN SING THE WHITES

A History Of British Blues Part 2 By John Collis

Jo Ann Kelly and her brother Dave, along with Tony McPhee, represented the south London blues contingent that grew up around Dave Carey’s Swing Shop in Streatham Hill, eagerly awaiting the latest American imports.

Jo Ann, who died of a brain tumour in 1990, aged just 46, was a superlative blues singer whose natural style was closer to country blues than R&B. She often cited Memphis Minnie as a major influence, and, in 1969, she worked with another of her heroes, Mississippi Fred McDowell, at the Centenary Blues Festival in Memphis and on a record, Standing At The Burial Ground, cut in London in the same year.

But her career started at the age of 20, when she and McPhee released a limited edition EP, Blues & Gospel. She sat in with The Yardbirds, forged a reputation in the London pubs, clubs and folk cellars, and began to travel the country as well. She contributed tracks to a number of anthology albums featuring British blues artists and, in 1968, was one of the featured musicians at the inaugural National Blues Federation Convention at the Conway Hall in London. A year later, during what proved to be the second and last Convention, she so impressed visiting members of Canned Heat when she jammed with them that they asked her to join the band.

In 1969, …

by John Collis
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