SPIVEY VICTORIA - Victoria Spivey Vol 1 1926-19 - Amazon.com Music

Borrowing innuendo from Bessie Smith and a ragtime piano style from Scott Joplin, Spivey was a popular Texas performer in the late 1920s and an actress and bandleader throughout the '30s and '40s. The first of five Document CDs in this exhaustive career retrospective opens with her first single, "Black Snake Blues," recorded at age 20. It's a blueprint of her playful style--she sings about you-know-what on "Steady Grind" and its repercussions on "Humored and Petted Blues"--and the prolific Spivey deserves more recognition today for her considerable influence. Volumes two through five progress through 1941.--Steve Knopper