MUSIC SCENE: All-women blues band plays final tour

MUSIC SCENE: All-women blues band plays final tour
July 17, 2009
By JAY N. MILLER
Enterprisenews.com

From their start in 1984, Saffire the Uppity Blues Women have tried to provoke the funnybone as much as the conscience. That has made the trio a popular live act and helped their seven previous albums on Alligator Records sell steadily.

But this summer and fall, the trio is on its farewell tour, celebrating their final album, “Havin’ the Last Word,” and preparing for solo projects. Saffire’s tour comes to Johnny D’s in Somerville on July 23.

Guitarist Gaye Adegbalola, reflecting on the band’s career, said the album is definitely the band’s swan song – albeit one that is “truly bittersweet.”

Saffire has lost none of its satiric sting or uninhibited feminine empowerment, as the new album demonstrates. Released at the end of January, “Havin’ the Last Word” includes some memorable tunes, like a rollicking cover of Bessie Smith’s “Kitchen Man,” whose euphemisms are as shocking and hilarious as they doubtless were in Smith’s 1920’s heyday.

“Bald Headed Blues” takes a light-hearted look at cancer treatment, and if you don’t think that’s possible, just listen.

“Too Much Butt” is an anthem for anyone whose expansive derrieres have made shopping for pants like “getting re-upholstered.”

Musically, the Saffire formula is unique, with Ann Rabson’s piano and guitar, Adegbalola’s guitar and harmonica, and Andra Faye’s bass, mandolin, fiddle and assorted other instruments creating a sound that belies their small number. Saffire’s ability to rock, boogie woogie, or hoedown with this lineup has enabled them to play every conceivable type of venue, from coffeehouses to rock arenas. Do not expect them to be the typical, quiet acoustic act.

Saffire is also the story of women at mid-life taking up a career, and making it work. As Adegbalola pointed out, she and Rabson were both single mothers in Fredericksburg, Va., when they began performing. Rabson, who was teaching computer courses at a local college, became a rabid piano student at age 35.

“I hope one of the things we did achieve over the past 25 years was to resurrect the memory of the blues women who went before us,” said Adegbalola. “Women like Bessie Smith, Sippie Wallace and Ida Cox – whose ‘Wild Women Don’t Worry’ is a real anthem – were doing these wonderful songs in the 1920s and ’30s, and they seldom get any credit today.”

That’s just one musical goal the trio went a long way toward achieving. Challenging and making hilarious fun of gender stereotypes, racial and sexual discrimination, and economic disparity were some of the provocative subjects they tackled with relish, not to mention a joyfully raucous sound and a tart wit.