Big Joanie

Big Joanie is a British punk trio formed in London in 2013. Its members are Stephanie Phillips (guitar and vocals), Estella Adeyeri (bass guitar and vocals), and Chardine Taylor-Stone (drums and vocals).

Big Joanie was formed by Stephanie Phillips in 2013, who posted online asking for bandmates with whom to start a black feminist punk band after becoming frustrated with the lack of intersectionality in the scene. Chardine Taylor-Stone, and the band's original bassist Kiera Coward-Deyell responded. The name of the band is partly a tribute to Phillips’ mother, Joan, and partly based on a Caribbean figure of speech. ‘When we say a child is “acting big”, they’re acting bigger than themselves. I just thought that would be a great phrase for a strong, confident woman. They played their first set at the inaugural First Timers.

In 2014 the band released their first EP Sistah Punk on Tuff Enuff Records, and in 2016 they self released a 7" three song single entitled Crooked Room on their own Sistah Punk Records. The title track is inspired by a lecture by the writer Melissa Harris-Perry, who compared life as a black woman in a white patriarchy to trying to find a true vertical in a room where everything is crooked. Another song on the release is a punk cover of No Scrubs by TLC. Estella Adeyeri (also of Witching Waves) joined in 2017 to replace Coward-Deyell after she moved to Scotland. Later that year the band supported American bands Sad13 and Downtown Boys on UK tours. In early 2018 they recorded their debut album with producer Margo Broom at Hermitage Works Studios. Over the weekend of 2–4 June 2017, DIY Diaspora Punx (a collective started by Phillips and also containing other London musicians such as Rachel Aggs) put on the first Decolonise Fest at DIY Space For London. Decolonise Fest is the UK's first music festival created by and for people of colour. The second edition of the festival, again mostly held at DIY Space, occurred from 22 to 24 June 2018. The festival was held for a third time over 29 to 30 June 2019, at which Big Joanie performed.



In March 2017 Stephanie Phillips contributed a chapter to 'Under My Thumb' – a book published by Repeater Books, edited by Rhian E. Jones and Eli Davies. Phillips' chapter praised/critiqued the work of Phil Spector. The book was launched with a concert hosted by feminist punk promoter Loud Women on 9 March 2017 at The Fiddler's Elbow in London, where bands including Big Joanie and I, Doris played songs by politically-problematic male musicians.

On 5 September 2018 Big Joanie announced their debut album Sistahs would be released in late November the same year with a music video for lead single "Fall Asleep". It is the first album to be released by Ecstatic Peace Library, a publishing company ran by visual book editor Eva Prinz and musician Thurston Moore, in their Daydream Library Series. Sistahs was released on 30 November to positive reviews, including in The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and The Quietus. In November 2018 they supported American band Parquet Courts on a UK and European tour. They played their first American shows in March 2019 at South by Southwest, debuting via BBC Music Introducing, and were announced in April as Bikini Kill's main support for their two European shows of the year at Brixton Academy in June. On 26th February 2020, Big Joanie supported Sleater-Kinney alongside Harkin also at the Brixton Academy. 

Joyce Kennedy

Joyce Kennedy, nicked "Baby Jean" (born 1948 in Anguilla, Mississippi) is an American singer raised in Chicago.

At age 7 Kennedy moved to Chicago with her mother. This is where she began her singing career. In 1963, Joyce released her first single. With the help of Andre Williams, she recorded her first song for Ran-Dee Records. The song Darling I Still Love You became a local hit, which inspired her to further pursue her singing career.

Kennedy met Glenn Murdock, formerly of The Vondells and they started to perform together as a duo they would form what is considered to be the original black rock band: Mother's Finest. They recruited Gary Moore and Jerry Seay on guitar and bass, respectively. Mother's Finest was initially signed with RCA but eventually landed at Epic Records, where their third, fourth, and fifth albums were certified gold. They opened for the likes of Ted Nugent, Black Sabbath, The Who, Aerosmith, and AC/DC. The band would go on to sign with Atlantic Records, taking a break after their 1981 album Iron Age while Joyce pursued a solo career.

Mother’s Finest was known for their interactive and lively performances as well as their progressive music. This led to them being successful in their own way and touring across the world. The band is also known as “a very tough act to follow on stage” due to their engaging live shows. This is considered to apply even for very popular bands such as those mentioned above or Santana or Earth, Wind & Fire.

In 1984, the band broke up, and Kennedy signed with A&M Records. Lookin' for Trouble was her debut with A&M. Along with that single, she released the singles Stronger Than Before and The Last Time I Made Love, which was a duet with Jeffrey Osborne. The Last Time I Made Love was her most successful single, reaching number 2 on the R&B charts and number 40 on the Billboard Hot 100. Kennedy said the record label tried to have her music appeal to a "predominately black" audience.

Despite going on a "farewell" tour with Mother's Finest in 2017, proclaiming that she would stop touring with Mother's Finest, Joyce Kennedy still tours with the band regularly and will embark on a 50 year anniversary tour in 2021. 

Gladys Bentley

Gladys Alberta Bentley (August 12, 1907 – January 18, 1960) was an American blues singer, pianist, and entertainer during the Harlem Renaissance. Her career skyrocketed when she appeared at Harry Hansberry's Clam House in New York in the 1920s, as a black, lesbian, cross-dressing performer. She headlined in the early 1930s at Harlem's Ubangi Club, where she was backed up by a chorus line of drag queens. She dressed in men's clothes (including a signature tuxedo and top hat), played piano, and sang her own raunchy lyrics to popular tunes of the day in a deep, growling voice while flirting with women in the audience.

Bentley was born August 12, 1907 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of George L. Bentley, an American, and his wife, Mary Mote, a Trinidadian. Bentley stated that "It seems I was born different. At least, I always thought I was." From an early age, Bentley defied gender normative behaviors and femininity. She was larger in size and preferred to wear her brother's suits instead of dresses or blouses. As a result of her lack of gender conformity, she was teased by her classmates and often ostracized by her family and peers. She moved from Philadelphia to Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City at the age of 16. She heard that Harry Hansberry's Clam House on 133rd Street, one of the city's most notorious gay speakeasies, needed a male pianist. This is when she began performing in men's attire ("white full dress shirts, stiff collars, small bow ties, oxfords, short Eton jackets, and hair cut straight back"), and here she perfected her act and became popular and successful.

Her salary started at $35 per week plus tips and went to $125 per week, and the club was soon renamed Barbara's Exclusive Club, after her stage name at the time, Barbara "Bobbie" Minton. She then began performing at the Ubangi Club on Park Avenue, she got an accompanist on piano and was successful enough to own a "$300/month apartment in Park Ave. She toured the country, some destinations being Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Hollywood, where she was well liked by Cesar Romero, Hugh Herbert, Cary Grant, Barbara Stanwyck, and other celebrities. Bentley had great talent as a piano player, singer, and entertainer. Her performances were "comical, sweet and risqué" for the era and the audience. In her music, she called out men and openly sang about sexual relationships which was seen as risqué behavior at the time. Even more, she often sang about "sissies" and "bulldaggers" and, through innuendo or more literally, about her female lovers, and she flirted with women in the audience. She mostly played the blues and parodies of popular songs of the time: "mocking 'high' class imagery with 'low' class humor, she applied aspects of the sexually charged 'black' blues to demure, romantic 'white' ballads, creating a culture clash between these two music forms". Bentley was known for taking popular songs and putting a promiscuous spin on them.

She sang loud, and her vocal style was deep and booming, sometimes using a growling effect and imitations of a horn. In August 1928, she signed with Okeh Records company and recorded eight sides over the course of the next year up until 1929. In 1930 she recorded a side with the Washboard Serenaders for Victor, and later recorded for the Excelsior, and Flame labels. Her vocal range was wide, as can be heard in her recordings. She mostly sang in a deep, low range, but also reached high notes. Bentley's performances appealed to black, white, gay, and straight audiences alike, and many celebrities attended her shows.  

In 1933 she attempted to move her act to Broadway, despite legal issues. There she received many complaints about her raunchy performances which resulted in the police locking up the doors of places she performed. Unable to express her talent/ craft on Broadway, she was forced to move back to Harlem in 1934 where she then played at the Ubangi Club for three years before it closed in 1937.



On the decline of the Harlem speakeasies with the repeal of Prohibition, she relocated to southern California. She tried to continue her musical career by playing in a number of gay nightspots but did not achieve as much success as she had had in the past. As times progressed and federal laws continued to change, there became a point where Bentley had to carry special permits to allow her to perform in men's clothing. She was frequently harassed for wearing men's clothing.

Aside from her musical talent and success, Bentley is a significant and inspiring figure for the LGBT community and African Americans, and she was a prominent figure during the Harlem Renaissance. She was revolutionary in her masculinity: According to Wilson, James in the book "Bulldaggers, Pansies, and Chocolate Babies", "Differing from the traditional male impersonator, or drag king, in the popular theater, Gladys Bentley did not try to 'pass' as a man, nor did she playfully try to deceive her audience into believing she was biologically male. Instead, she exerted a 'black female masculinity' that troubled the distinctions between black and white and masculine and feminine".

Bentley died of pneumonia unexpectedly at her home in Los Angeles on January 8, 1960, aged 52

Sugar Pie DeSanto

Sugar Pie DeSanto (born Peylia Marsema Balinton, October 16, 1935) is an American rhythm-and-blues singer, whose career in music flourished in the 1950s and 1960s. DeSanto was born to an African-American mother, who was a concert pianist, and a Filipino father. She spent most of her early life in San Francisco, California, where she moved with her family at the age of four. As a girl she was friends with Etta James.

Johnny Otis discovered DeSanto in 1955, and she toured with the Johnny Otis Revue. Otis gave her the stage name Sugar Pie. In 1959 and 1960, she toured with the James Brown Revue.

In 1960, DeSanto rose to national prominence when her single "I Want to Know" reached number four on Billboard's Hot R&B chart.  She moved to Chicago and signed with Chess Records in 1962 as a recording artist and writer. Among her recordings for Chess were "Slip-in Mules", "Use What You Got", "Soulful Dress" (her biggest hit for Chess), and "I Don't Wanna Fuss". DeSanto participated in the American Folk Blues Festival tour of Europe in 1964, and her lively performances, including wild dancing and standing back flips, were widely appreciated.

In 1965 DeSanto, under the name Peylia Parham, began a writing collaboration with Shena DeMell. They produced the song "Do I Make Myself Clear", which DeSanto sang as a duet with Etta James. It reached the top 10. It was followed by another DeSanto–James duet, "In the Basement", in 1966. DeSanto's next record, "Go Go Power", did not make the charts, and she and Chess parted ways.

DeSanto kept on writing songs and recorded for a few more labels. She eventually moved back to the Bay Area, settling in Oakland. Though it has often been said that her stage performances far surpassed her studio recordings, a full-length live recording, Classic Sugar Pie, was not released until 1997. She was given a Bay Area Music Award in 1999 for best female blues singer. In September 2008, she was given a Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation and the next year she received a lifetime achievement award from the Goldie Awards. 

Nikki Hill

Independence has always come easy for singer, songwriter, and bandleader Nikki Hill, raised by a single mother and two older sisters throughout Durham, North Carolina. Coming up in the church choir as a child, curiosity led Nikki to trade the pews for barstools, and her interests in music exploded in every direction, realizing it was a world with no boundaries. She felt oddly comfortable, finding a direct connection between the energy she saw at local shows, and the praise dancing, gospel shouting church services she experienced every week growing up.

In this unique way, Hill found her inspiration in pulling the different parts of her musical worlds together, taking the tones of the R&B, soul, and gospel that raised her at home, and blending with the expressions of blues, garage, rock n’ roll, and roots that she soaked up on her own. Overlapping soulful, sensual and bold vocal tones with powerful chrome-plated riffs and swagger, her voice finds a home in it - a soul singing, bar rocking, roots revivalist, that writes with frank self-reflection at a dancing tempo.

Ahead of her album, Here’s Nikki Hill, word was spreading from relentless touring and old-fashioned word of mouth. Hill embraced the muse and jumped into the process of probing the vital role that Black women played in what became rock ‘n’ roll. As word spread, so did interest, allowing Hill opportunities to open for a range of artists like Dr. John, Aaron Neville, to Eileen Jewel and Nelly, before any music was released. Nikki continued to develop her sound, learning with trial and error, a lot of road mileage, self-releasing albums, and carving out a place for herself, and a place for other people going through similar struggles.

Nikki’s songwriting and passion for music of the 1950s and 1960s introduced more opportunities and recordings. Her song “Struttin’” contributed to Deke Dickerson and The Bo-Keys Soul Meets Country EP, produced by Scott Bomar in Memphis, TN. Nikki moved to New Orleans, LA, picking up influence in the Gulf Coast. The momentum continued through the release of her second album, Heavy Hearts Hard Fists, recorded at Fort Horton Studios in Wyldwood, TX. The acclaimed album was accompanied by a worldwide tour in the US, Europe, Australia, India and Morocco, and over 30 festivals, including Montreux Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, and Byron Bay Blues Festival, receiving praise for uplifting the new songs with an erupting live performance. Hill’s current touring band is Matt Hill (guitar), Laura Chavez (guitar), Nick Gaitan (bass), and Marty Dodson (drums).

On Nikki Hill's latest release, Feline Roots, Hill lets her soul rip on this new collection of songs. Nikki and her band take a muscular groove - that used to be called the devil’s music, celebrating and wailing over love, transgressions, the hard times, and wild freedom - and inject it with timeless effect, giving Nikki a foundation on which to build. It's her version of rock n' roll that can only come from her stories. Nikki Hill has never been afraid to take the road less traveled, and it's clear with "Feline Roots" that she's living every word.

Dinah Washington

Dinah Washington (born Ruth Lee Jones; August 29, 1924 – December 14, 1963) was an American singer and pianist, who has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s". Primarily a jazz vocalist, she performed and recorded in a wide variety of styles including blues, R&B, and traditional pop music, and gave herself the title of "Queen of the Blues". She was a 1986 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.

Ruth Lee Jones was born in Tuscaloosa and moved to Chicago as a child. She became deeply involved in gospel and played piano for the choir in St. Luke's Baptist Church while still in elementary school. She sang gospel music in church and played piano, directing her church choir in her teens and being a member of the Sallie Martin Gospel Singers. She sang lead with the first female gospel singers formed by Sallie Martin, who was co-founder of the Gospel Singers Convention. Her involvement with the gospel choir occurred after she won an amateur contest at Chicago's Regal Theater where she sang "I Can't Face the Music".  By 1941–42 she was performing in such Chicago clubs as Dave's Café and the Downbeat Room of the Sherman Hotel (with Fats Waller). She was playing at the Three Deuces, a jazz club, when a friend took her to hear Billie Holiday at the Garrick Stage Bar. Club owner Joe Sherman was so impressed with her singing of "I Understand", backed by the Cats and the Fiddle, who were appearing in the Garrick's upstairs room, that he hired her. During her year at the Garrick – she sang upstairs while Holiday performed in the downstairs room – she acquired the name by which she became known.

She made her recording debut for the Keynote label that December with "Evil Gal Blues", written by Leonard Feather and backed by Lionel Hampton and musicians from his band, including Joe Morris (trumpet) and Milt Buckner (piano). Both that record and its follow-up, "Salty Papa Blues", made the Billboard "Harlem Hit Parade" in 1944. In December 1945 she made a series of twelve recordings for Apollo Records, 10 of which were issued, featuring the "Lucky Thompson All Stars."

She stayed with Hampton's band until 1946, after the Keynote label folded, signed for Mercury Records as a solo singer. Her first record for Mercury, a version of Fats Waller's "Ain't Misbehavin'", was another hit, starting a long string of success. Between 1948 and 1955, she had 27 R&B top ten hits, making her one of the most popular and successful singers of the period. Both "Am I Asking Too Much" (1948) and "Baby Get Lost" (1949) reached Number 1 on the R&B chart, and her version of "I Wanna Be Loved" (1950) crossed over to reach Number 22 on the US pop chart. Her hit recordings included blues, standards, novelties, pop covers, and even a version of Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart" (R&B Number 3, 1951). At the same time as her biggest popular success, she also recorded sessions with many leading jazz musicians, including Clifford Brown and Clark Terry on the album Dinah Jams (1954), and also recorded with Cannonball Adderley and Ben Webster.

In 1950, Dinah Washington performed at the sixth famed Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles which was produced by Leon Hefflin, Sr. on June 25. Also featured on the same day were Lionel Hampton, PeeWee Crayton's Orchestra, Roy Milton and his Orchestra, Tiny Davis and Her Hell Divers, and other artists. 16,000 were reported to be in attendance. Washington came back to perform at the twelfth Cavalcade of Jazz also at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles on September 2, 1956. Also performing that day were Little Richard, The Mel Williams Dots, Julie Stevens, Chuck Higgin's Orchestra, Bo Rhambo, Willie Hayden & Five Black Birds, The Premiers, Gerald Wilson and His 20-Pc. Recording Orchestra and Jerry Gray and his Orchestra.

In 1959, she had her first top ten pop hit, with a version of "What a Diff'rence a Day Made", which made Number 4 on the US pop chart. Her band at that time included arranger Belford Hendricks, with Kenny Burrell (guitar), Joe Zawinul (piano), and Panama Francis (drums). She followed it up with a version of Irving Gordon's "Unforgettable", and then two highly successful duets in 1960 with Brook Benton, "Baby (You've Got What It Takes)" (No. 5 Pop, No. 1 R&B) and "A Rockin' Good Way (To Mess Around and Fall in Love)" (No. 7 Pop, No. 1 R&B). Her last big hit was "September in the Rain" in 1961 (No. 23 Pop, No. 5 R&B).

She also notably performed two numbers in the dirty blues genre. The songs were "Long John Blues" about her dentist, with lyrics like "He took out his trusty drill. Told me to open wide. He said he wouldn't hurt me, but he filled my whole inside." She also recorded a song called "Big Long Sliding Thing", supposedly about a trombonist. In the 1950s and early 1960s before her death, Washington occasionally performed on the Las Vegas Strip. Washington's achievements included appearances at the Newport Jazz Festival (1955–59), the Randalls Island Jazz Festival in New York City (1959), and the International Jazz Festival in Washington D.C. (1962), frequent gigs at Birdland (1958, 1961–62), and performances in 1963 with Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

Early in the morning of December 14, 1963, she was found dead in bed, an autopsy later showed a lethal combination of secobarbital and amobarbital, prescriptions for her insomnia and diet, which contributed to her death at the age of 39. She is buried in the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.

Bea Booze

Bea Booze (March 23, 1912 – November 11, 1986), often credited as Wee Bea Booze, was an American R&B and jazz singer most popular in the 1940s.

She was born Beatrice Booze in Baltimore, the daughter of Phillip and Lydia Booze. She made her name as a singer in Harlem, New York. Booze was signed by Decca Records to cover the songs and emulate the style of Lil Green and, under the guidance of Sammy Price, first recorded in 1942. Her version of "See See Rider Blues", first recorded by Ma Rainey, reached number 1 on the US Billboard R&B chart, after which she was billed as the "See See Rider Blues Girl". In addition to singing, she played guitar in performance and on many of her recordings.

Later in the 1940s, Booze recorded as a jazz vocalist with the Andy Kirk band, which featured the trumpeter Fats Navarro, and also with a jazz quartet that included the saxophonist George Kelly and the organist Larry Johnson.




She retired from the music industry in the early 1950s, and settled in Baltimore and later in Scottsville, New York, although she recorded with Sammy Price in 1962. She died in Scottsville in 1986. 

Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald, naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French singer, dancer, actress, French Resistance agent, and civil rights activist. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France. Baker was the first African-American to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 silent film Siren of the Tropics, directed by Mario Nalpas and Henri Étiévant.

Baker's consistent badgering of a show manager in her hometown led to her being recruited for the St. Louis Chorus vaudeville show. At the age of 15, she headed to New York City during the Harlem Renaissance, performing at the Plantation Club, Florence Mills’ old stomping ground, and in the chorus lines of the groundbreaking and hugely successful Broadway revues Shuffle Along (1921) with Adelaide Hall and The Chocolate Dandies (1924). Baker performed as the last dancer on the end of the chorus line, where her act was to perform in a comic manner, as if she were unable to remember the dance, until the encore, at which point she would perform it not only correctly but with additional complexity. A term of the time describes this part of the cast as "The Pony". Baker was billed at the time as "the highest-paid chorus girl in vaudeville".

Baker sailed to Paris for a new venture, and opened in La Revue Nègre on 2 October 1925, aged 19, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. She became an instant success for her erotic dancing, and for appearing practically nude onstage. After a successful tour of Europe, she broke her contract and returned to France in 1926 to star at the Folies Bergère, setting the standard for her future acts. Baker performed the "Danse Sauvage" wearing a costume consisting of a skirt made of a string of artificial bananas. Her success coincided (1925) with the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs, which gave birth to the term "Art Deco", and also with a renewal of interest in non-Western forms of art, including African. Baker represented one aspect of this fashion. In later shows in Paris, she was often accompanied on stage by her pet cheetah, "Chiquita", who was adorned with a diamond collar. The cheetah frequently escaped into the orchestra pit, where it terrorized the musicians, adding another element of excitement to the show.

At this time she scored her most successful song, "J'ai deux amours" (1931). In 1934, she took the lead in a revival of Jacques Offenbach's opera La créole, which premiered in December of that year for a six-month run at the Théâtre Marigny on the Champs-Élysées of Paris. In preparation for her performances, she went through months of training with a vocal coach. In the words of Shirley Bassey, who has cited Baker as her primary influence, "... she went from a 'petite danseuse sauvage' with a decent voice to 'la grande diva magnifique' ... I swear in all my life I have never seen, and probably never shall see again, such a spectacular singer and performer." Despite her popularity in France, Baker never attained the equivalent reputation in America. Her star turn in a 1936 revival of Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway generated less than impressive box office numbers, and later in the run, she was replaced by Gypsy Rose Lee.

She was known for aiding the French Resistance during World War II. After the war, she was awarded the Croix de guerre by the French military, and was named a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur by General Charles de Gaulle. Baker refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States and is noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement.

Baker was on stage at the Olympia in Paris in 1968, in Belgrade and at Carnegie Hall in 1973, and at the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium and at the Gala du Cirque in Paris in 1974. On 8 April 1975, Baker starred in a retrospective revue at the Bobino in Paris, Joséphine à Bobino 1975, celebrating her 50 years in show business. Four days later, Baker was found lying peacefully in her bed surrounded by newspapers with glowing reviews of her performance. She was in a coma after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. She was taken to Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, where she died, aged 68, on 12 April 1975.

Willa Mae Buckner

Willa Mae Buckner was born on June 15th, 1922 in Augusta, Georgia. In her days as a touring performer, Buckner was known as “The Wild Enchantress,” “Princess Ejo,” “The Snake Lady,” and “The World’s Only Black Gypsy.” Buckner was a fearless woman who taught herself piano at age 21 and picked up the guitar at 35. She was known for many different lives: she knew seven languages, traveled with her own circus/snake show, was a guitar slinging burlesque dancer, and “settled down” by owning 28 snakes at the end of her life.

As to what Willa Mae Buckner meant to American music in the twentieth century, it’s hard to say. Her libidinous signature songs, “Peter Rumpkin” is not particularly well-known, and her music is available only on two compilations distributed by the nonprofit Music Maker Relief Foundation of Pinnacle, North Carolina. Buckner was a genuine trailblazer, though, an attraction on the ill-documented carnival and medicine show circuit. Like long-dead medicine show vets Pink Anderson and Peg Leg Sam, Willa borrowed liberally from vaudeville, knowing full well that the strange, sexy or hilarious was more likely to draw paying customers than the heartfelt and forlorn.

She was from the pre-television, segregation era, and Willa was a star. People think the blues is just Muddy Waters. In Southern, working-class African-American communities, though, they might not even know who Muddy Waters was, but they know Willa because she came to play the tent show every year. Three generations of people came out to see her snake shows. Buckner worked all sorts of carnival shows in the early years of her career. “I worked the nail bed,” she told Welker. “I ate fire. I also did the bronze dance: That’s where you go all over the body with mineral oil and you put that gold paint on. You did contortions when you were in that stuff, and if you weren’t careful you’d fall flat on your rear or your belly.” In 1946, Willa decided to get off the road and settle in Spanish Harlem. She sewed, worked at restaurants and in other people’s homes, and studied foreign languages at night school. She also took lessons in tap and gypsy-style belly dancing and played with a Calypso band in small clubs.

She was 42 when she began making plans to get back on the road. The 1964 World’s Fair was held at Flushing Meadow in the New York City borough of Queens, and among the featured performers was a Moroccan snake handler. After building a healthy collection of 28 snakes, she went to Philadelphia, bought a truck and a tent, and joined up with a traveling sideshow. She began billing herself as Princess Ejo, The Wild Enchantress or The World’s Only Black Gypsy, and her snake shows were popular facets of various carnivals. In 1973, Willa’s truck broke down and she left sideshow life to settle near her family in Winston-Salem.

In January 1994, the Music Maker Foundation was formed and it began spreading the word about Willa and other “forgotten heroes of the blues,” That same year she went back to New York, this time to play Carnegie Hall as part of a show called Circus Blues. By the summer of 1999, Willa’s mind and body began to shut down. She made it through the holidays, dying early in the morning on Jan. 8.