“Blues Women International” making history in Clarksdale, Mississippi

History and magic was made at the first ever  Blues Women International recording.  Blues  artists and an all female back up band joined passionate forces at the end of January in Clarksdale, Mississippi near the famed Crossroads to record 17 all original songs.  This all took place at the Hopson Plantation Commissary where organizers  turned the commissary into a recording studio.

Women blues artists came from all over the globe including Canada, Australia and many states like Texas, Alabama, Maine and more.  Most of the women are recording artists, some are seasoned touring artists, others are award winners and all are blues women songwriters and players, with a female view of the blues.

This was the first project organized and spearheaded by the newly formed group called Blues Women International. Project manager was Lon Mickelson from Minneapolis, who is a long time blues promoter, with some assistance in the planning with Sunday Wilde. It took months of planning to coordinate the venue, assistants and the female artists. It was organized to take place prior to the Memphis IBC so that the women could save on travel costs.

Hopson Commissary

The recording took place on Monday and Tuesday January 28-29 and is now in the second stage of the mixing and editing. The new release is expected to be launched in March of 2013. Many of the artists stayed on site at the Shack Up Inn and the Hopson Commissary so they could network, and work on the creative process. It was magic and history in the making with so many female artists in the blues together to meld and record.

The players involved in the recording were:  Pat Pepin (Readfield, Maine), Billie Feather (Winston-Salem, NC), Carol Dierking (Dallas, TX) Heather Cross (Little Rock, AR), Jaqueline Nassar (Clarksdale, MS),  Cindy Maloney (Denton, TX), Joni and Alexandra Buffalohead (Minneapollis, MN) DieDra (Birmingham, AL), Kelly Chappue (Huntington Beach, CA) Dee Lavell (Brunswick Heads, NSW, Australia  ) Julia Magnus (Austin, TX), Sunday Wilde (Atikokan,Ontario Canada) Janelle Frost (Birmingham, Alabama)  and April Mae (Lenola, NJ).

Blues Women Int’l Photo Contest  http://blueswomenintl.com/bwi/photo-contest-2013-1/

Blues Women Int’l database  http://blueswomenintl.com/bwi/participants-database-2/

More information on www.blueswomenintl.com