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(return
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Like many blueswomen and men before them,
Johnson, Young, and Streeter have found some of their most appreciative
audiences overseas. But they each answer with an emphatic "no"
when asked if they ever considered moving. "I haven't lost
anything over there," Young says with a laugh. "I love
Chicago, and I'm not going nowhere, OK? I'm going to be a thorn
in their side till the day I die."
As if to prove there's no place like home, all three ladies have
recent releases on the Chicago-based Delmark label. Johnson's
Killer Diller, Streeter's A Million of You, and
Young's Learned My Lesson have received good reviews and
should find a receptive audience among those looking for another
flavor of Chicago blues. The raspy, throaty vocals of Streeter
and Young are just what you'd expect from hard-working blueswomen
who have spent a lifetime testifying and signifying in smoky,
late-night clubs. Johnson's voice, however, exhibits a restraint
that hints at the sheer power she must be capable of. Perhaps
this comes from the fact that she still sings gospel regularly
with her group, the Gospel Supremes.
Streeter and Young, too, grew up singing gospel, and Streeter
sometimes closes her show with a gospel song. She says she'd
like to record some gospel tracks with Delmark. Young doesn't
sing much gospel these days; she has "a problem with straddling
the fence" between the sacred and the profane. "In
Europe, they request it," she says, "and they're so
kind. They say you can feel the gospel in the voice. So if they
insist, I shan't resist! That doesn't mean I'm going in the churches."
Shirley Johnson, Sarah Streeter, and Zora Young paid their dues
the old-fashioned way: gigging for little or no pay, enduring
long stretches on the road, sometimes feeling overlooked as a
female singer while the spotlight shone on a male guitarslinger.
In other words, surviving the hard-knock school of a woman's
life in the blues.
"If that's what you really want to do," says Johnson,
"you've just got to keep at it. It's going to be hard, you
know. All the times are not good. But if they see that you're
serious and you really want to do this, you can get a break."
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