Alberta Hunter, Lucille Bogan & Victoria Spivey - Songs We Taught Your Mother

1992 CD reissue.

Throughout its relatively brief history, the blues had many queens, but none so regally named as Queen Victoria Regina Spivey. She wasn’t one to hog the throne, however, and beginning with this 1961 Prestige/Bluesville album, launched a one-woman crusade to bring recognition to other surviving blueswomen of the Twenties and continued it on her own Spivey label until her death in 1976. Spivey, Lucille Hegamin, and Alberta Hunter represent different styles within the genre known as classic blues. Spivey was a rough, almost rural singer, while Hegamin was of the refined vaudeville variety and Hunter (who had given up on music and was working as a nurse at the time of these sessions) was a lighter-toned, more jazz-imbued stylist. Producer Chris Albertson picked the cream of New York’s traditional jazzmen for the record, including Harlem stride pianist Willie “The Lion” Smith for the Hegamin tracks.