Editing Delta blues (section)

== Female performers ==
In big-city blues, female singers such as [[Ma Rainey]], [[Bessie Smith]], and [[Mamie Smith]] dominated the recordings of the 1920s.<ref>{{cite book|last=Wyman, Havers, Doggett|title=Bill Wyman's Blues Odyssey|year=2001|publisher=Dorling Kindersley|pages=77–96}}</ref> Although very few women were recorded playing Delta blues and other rural or folk-style blues, many performers did not get professionally recorded.

[[Geeshie Wiley]] was a blues singer and guitar player who recorded six songs for [[Paramount Records]] that were issued on three records in April 1930. According to the blues historian [[Don Kent (blues historian)|Don Kent]], Wiley "may well have been the rural South's greatest female blues singer and musician".<ref>Kent, Don (1994). Liner notes to ''Mississippi Masters: Early American Blues Classics 1927–35''. Reprinted at ParamountsHome.org. Retrieved 18 September 2016.</ref>

L. V. Thomas, better known as [[Elvie Thomas]], was a blues singer and guitarist from [[Houston, Texas]], who recorded with Geeshie Wiley.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Sullivan|first=John Jeremiah|date=2014-04-12|title=The Ballad of Geeshie and Elvie|language=en-US|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/13/magazine/blues.html,%20https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/13/magazine/blues.html|access-date=2021-04-17|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

[[Memphis Minnie]] was a blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter whose recording career lasted for more than three decades. She recorded approximately 200 songs, some of the best known being "Bumble Bee", "Nothing in Rambling", and "[[Chauffeur Blues|Me and My Chauffeur Blues]]".

[[Bertha Lee]] was a blues singer, active in the 1920s and 1930s. She recorded with and was the [[common-law wife]] of, Charley Patton.<ref>"Biography by Joslyn Layne". [[AllMusic]]. Retrieved September 21, 2011.</ref>

[[Rosa Lee Hill]], daughter of Sid Hemphill, learned guitar from her father and by the time she was ten, was playing at dances with him.<ref>[http://www.culturalequity.org/sites/default/files/2018-06/Liner_notes_LomaxCollection.pdf Liner notes, Lomax Collection], Culturalequity.org</ref> Several of her songs, such as "Rolled and Tumbled", were recorded by Alan Lomax between 1959 and 1960.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Lomax|first=Alan|last2=Hill|first2=Rosa|date=1959-09-25|title=Rolled and tumbled|url=https://egrove.olemiss.edu/lomax/464|journal=Alan Lomax Collection}}</ref> In the late 1960s, [[Jo Ann Kelly]] (UK) started her recording career.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Martin |first1=Terry |title=Jo Ann Kelly |url=http://www.martin-kingsbury.co.uk/articles/jo-ann%20kelly.htm |website=Martin & Kingsbury | access-date=5 November 2022}}</ref> In the 1970s, [[Bonnie Raitt]] and [[Phoebe Snow]] performed blues.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.allmusic.com/song/san-francisco-bay-blues-mt0009236274|title=Phoebe Snow San Francisco Bay Blues|website=[[AllMusic]]| access-date=4 November 2022}}</ref> 

Bonnie Raitt, [[Susan Tedeschi]] and [[Rory Block]] are contemporary female blues artists, who were influenced by Delta blues and learned from some of the most notable of the original artists still living. [[Sue Foley]] and [[Shannon Curfman]] also performed blues music.