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Written by Glenn BurnSilver
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Wednesday, 18 October 2006 |
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 An all-woman blues band isn’t something you see or hear everyday.
It’s no surprise that such a band would get people talking, especially if the band members were, how shall we say, pushing middle age.
“When we started out, people used to say ‘it’s three women.’ Then it became ‘three old women.’ Then ‘three old women singing raunchy songs.’ Then ‘three old women who were culturally diverse singing raunchy songs,’” said Gaye Adegbalola, guitarist, singer and founder of Saffire: The Uppity Blues Women, on the phone from her home in Virginia.
“And ‘oh, yeah, they play pretty good music too.’” she said with a laugh.
That was back in the 1980s when three 40-something women chanced a bold career move and formed a blues band. They started out playing less-than-glamorous Sunday and Monday night sets in a Holiday Inn bar and later toured the country in a rickety old van, arguing about the heat controls. Group counseling was needed just to hold the act together.
With Adegbalola and Ann Rabson now in their 60s (original bass player Earlene Lewis was replaced by now-46-year-old Andra Faye in 1993), they have become one of the premier blues acts on the road today, and with good reason.
Inspired by female blues pioneers Bessie Smith and Ma Rainy, no other band can boast the same outlook on life as these three women, nor conjure up a sound that mixes contemporary, boogie-woogie and acoustic blues traditions.
“The nature of our songs has been really unique. I don’t know anyone out there who observes life with our kind of eye,” Adegbalola said, using the song “Silver Beaver,” a slightly raunchy tale, as a good example.
“It’s about growing older and your beaver turning silver, but actually it’s a song about empowerment, about older women being unique and having a unique outlook,” she said. “It’s about embracing what we have and finding goodness in who we are instead of down-playing who we are and acting like is doesn’t exist.”
It is this type of empowerment and the general cleansing nature of the blues that has Saffire invited to play numerous benefit gigs every year, including this year’s Women Rock The Rialto benefit in Loveland for the Women’s Resource Center.
“A lot of what blues is, is finding your salvation right now, getting the pain out and being able to find humor in the pain. The whole point of it is to find out what (the pain) is, get it out, and move on,” she said. “A lot of (blues) is written by and for and about women, so therefore it is a double thing for an event like this. It’s very satisfying. I’m glad they picked us. We hope this will be a major celebration.”
7th annual Women Rock The Rialto
Featuring Saffire: The Uppity Blues Women
Saturday, Oct. 21
Rialto Theatre
228 E. 4th St, Loveland
Doors 7:30 p.m.; show 8 p.m.
962.2120
$50, VIP seating and cocktail party; $25, general admission
With Faith Jackson and Steve Manshel Band
Who benefits: The concert is a benefit for the Women’s Resource Center, a community-based nonprofit organization that works to reduce barriers to health care while improving the health and well being of all women in Larimer County.
Age is not a factor
“It’s a real thrill when a young man brings his grandma to a show,” said Uppity Blues Woman Gaye Adegbalola. “We pride ourselves on being cross-generational. We like to think we can play for young folks and old folks.”
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