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Alice Stuart - Still Crazy With The BluesArticle by Phil Chestnut, appeared in BluesNotes April 2006 Photos by Greg Johnson |
Although they’ve all paid their dues for decades, this past decade, the Pacific Northwest has yielded an outstanding crop of homegrown blues talent that has proven to be hugely influential, not only on a regional level but on a national level as well. Seattle blues fans, like myself, consider Portland to be a blues Mecca because of the vibrant, smart blues scene and the remarkable assemblage of “A-list” blues talent available. Portland blues folks certainly have reason to be proud with names like Paul, Curtis, Lloyd, Duffy and on and on. However, we blues fans from Seattle have a bit more to boast about than just being the hometown of Jimi Hendrix. Yes, Seattle too has its own working blues legends, including Little Bill Englehart, David Brewer and the fabulous Northwest folk-blues icon, Alice Stuart.
As a professional musician for 45 years, Alice Stuart has never strayed far from the roots music that she started with. Alice’s musical career basically has two parts from 1961 to 1978 when in ’79, Stuart retired to raise her family. Thankfully for the blues, Alice revived her career in 1996 to great acclaim and has never looked back.
Although considered a folk musician, who hosted her own televised hootenanny show in the early ‘60s, what Alice was playing and writing was definitely more blues than folk. Considered as much a musical triple threat then, as she is now. An amazing songwriter with Mississippi John Hurt-John Prine sensibilities, who’s vocals have only gotten better over the years, Stuart is also a superb picker with a very Bonnie Raitt feel to her slide guitar. In fact, blues photographer/historian Dick Waterman, once remarked, “There would be no Bonnie Raitt without Alice Stuart.” As the one who discovered Raitt, Waterman should know. Musician/historian, Taj Mahal concurs, saying, “Alice cut the road that Bonnie traveled.”
During the revolutionary musical period of the ‘60s and ‘70s, Alice Stuart was the prototype for all female blues and rock fronts to come. As a lead guitar, singing songwriter, Alice was in great demand during this period, touring the U.S. and Europe with the likes of Van Morrison, Mike Bloomfield, Commander Cody and John Prine. She also appeared and recorded with Jerry Garcia, Albert King, John Hammond, Asleep At The Wheel, Elvin Bishop, Sonny Terry, Dave Mason and Tower Of Power. With George Carlin as host, Alice appeared on the Dick Cavett Show and other numerous local broadcasts.
In 1964, Alice released her first album, “All The Goodtimes,” on the Arhoolie label, followed in ’70 and ’72 with two more landmark recordings on Fantasy Records, “Full Time Woman” and “Believing,” with her band Snake. Alice was truly a rarity, one who could play, sing and write as well as anyone, in the male dominated business. Receiving rave revues from Billboard, Guitar Player and Rolling Stone Magazines, Alice’s songs were also recorded by Jackie DeShannon, Eddie Rabbit, Kate Wolf and Irma Thomas. Also in ’64, Stuart was introduced to the Berkeley Folk Festival, then the largest festival on the West Coast. From there she toured and performed with Joan Baez, Doc Watson, Phil Ochs, Jerry Ricks, Lightnin’ Hopkins and John Hurt, among others. Using the Bay Area as her home base during her early performance years, it is also where she retired to in the late ‘70s. If that wasn’t enough of a musical resume, in 1966, Alice Stuart became one of the original members and first woman in Frank Zappa’s Mothers Of Invention.
During her hiatus as wife and different kind of mother, the blues still burned within the soul of Alice Stuart. When she reemerged on the scene in ’96, she hit the ground running and quickly showed that she is truly a force to be reckoned with, issuing “Really Good,” with bassist Prune Rooney, her first album in 24 years. In ’99, Stuart, again with Rooney, issued “Crazy With The Blues,” both of these issues, along with their newest CD are on the Country con Fusion label. The hugely successful “Can’t Find No Heaven,” on Portland’s own Burnside label, came out in 2002, considered one of the year’s best blues albums, with nominations for both a Grammy and Handy Award. “No Heaven” showed that she was once again at the top of her genre and just getting stronger. Stuart now performs with her band, The Formerlys. Getting their name because the trio have all played with such a long list of known bands, it was easier to abbreviate, than listing formerly of . . . Her most recent recording project, issued in 2005 is titled, “Alice Stuart & The Formerlys – Live At The Triple Door.” This double CD set, from live sessions at Seattle’s “high-end” music venue, not only demonstrates the great, original music fromthis fine blues ensemble, it also shows the high spirit and energy that this band emotes during a live performance.
Alice has received BB Awards from the Washington Blues Society for “Album of the Year” for her Burnside project and another BB for “Best Songwriter.” In 2004, she also became a member of the Washington State Blues Hall of Fame.
Alice and The Formerlys headlined at last year’s Waterfront Blues Festival, where she also held a solo workshop, both to delighted, large crowds. She and the band have also been headlining occasional weekends at Portland’s Beale Street NW. This March, Alice worked concert venues rather than in the clubs. These concerts included a performance with fellow picker, Mary Flower, produced by the Seattle Folklore Society, with her band as featured guests for the Evergreen Scholarship Fund Concert and at Seattle’s Acoustic Music Festival, as a teacher at that music workshop. Alice and her band will tour Nevada and California for the first half of April before returning to a full schedule in Washington.
Every female performer who fronts her own band, be it rock or blues, from Bonnie (Raitt) to Chrissy Hind to Joan Jett to Susan Tedeschi, all owe a big debt of gratitude to this groundbreaking woman of the blues, Alice Stuart. I see many more accolades in the future for this amazing Northwest performer and writer.