Monthly Archives: July 2021

Women Who Shred

My pal Barry contacted me a couple of weeks ago to let me know he had tickets to see Ana Popović perform in Boston, and today he followed up with a glowing report on the show. Ana is a Serbian blues singer and guitarist with a career reaching back 25 years, and a resume that includes nearly a dozen studio and live albums, and a guest spot on the Jimi Hendrix tribute album Blue Haze: Songs of Jimi Hendrix released back in 2000. At a time when blues and rock guitar chops are at a nadir relative to days of yore, Ana is channeling the greats of the art form – men and women. Here she is live a couple of months ago, paying respects to Stevie Ray Vaughn, and in a rock video bringing a bit of the Lita Ford.

Coincidentally, in the past couple of weeks I learned about Samantha Fish. This fall she’ll release Faster, bringing her career total to a dozen albums. Like Popović, Fish can flat out play, and can bring the glamour too. Fun to see her smash things, but respect her guitars in “Twisted Ambition”

Watching and listening to these two women rock and shred, caused me to hunt around for others, and I turned up Orianthi, another amazing talent. The Australian was chosen by Michael Jackson to be the lead guitarist for his “This Is It” concerts – cancelled due to his untimely death. She’s played Eric Clapton’s Crossroads festival, recorded with Dave Stewart, Richie Sambora and the Hollywood Vampires, opened for Steve Vai, and recently released her solo album, O. Like Popović and Fish, Orianthi can flat out play and can melt the camera.

Favorite Cover of the Year

On July 23rd David Crosby will release a new album, For Free, weeks short of his 80th birthday. The title of the album is taken from one of the advance release singles, a cover of Joni Mitchell’s song from 1970’s Ladies of the Canyon. And, wow, what a cover it is! Crosby is at his best singing with others, and for this cover he teamed with the exquisite Sarah Jarosz.

Joni Mitchell is not often covered. Her vocal range, her musicianship, and her very personal styling on her very personal songs seem hard to improve upon. I think this version, though, is even more beautifully executed than Mitchell’s compelling live performance from the year of the song’s release if you’d like to compare.

One cover that took a Joni Mitchell song to a wholly different level, also involved David Crosby and was also a track from Ladies of the Canyon. “Woodstock” was written by Mitchell shortly after the 1969 music festival took place, and was released both by Joni and by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in 1970. Enjoy comparing CSNY’s iconic album cut, and what is billed as Joni’s first performance of the song in September 1969. And if you watch to the very end of the video I’m pretty sure that’s Graham Nash, who was Joni’s love interest at the time – not too long after her relationship with David Crosby had ended.