'Blues Is a Woman' concert charts the battle for equality

“A pretty girl is like a melody,” according to the Ziegfeld Follies theme song that Irving Berlin wrote back in 1919, and a 1912 lyrical lament penned by Le Roy “Lasses” White tells us, “the blues ain’t nothing but a good man feelin’ bad.”

However, Bay Area blues and jazz singer Pamela Rose is here to tell you that “Blues Is a Woman.”

That’s the name of the stage show she presented a couple of years ago at the Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma (and later in San Francisco) and it’s also the name of the revamped, streamlined concert version she’ll bring Saturday to the Raven Performing Arts Theater in Healdsburg.

“We’re starting to get booked nationally,” Rose said, as well as throughout California, with a Seattle performance coming up and hopefully, a show in New York City early next year.

The show pays tribute to America’s great women blues singers dating from the early 20th century to the present, from Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Etta James to Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin and Bonnie Raitt.

“We take it decade by decade, and the music definitely sparks peoples’ interest,” Rose said.

“These women were fiercely independent and did not suffer in silence. In their songs, a mistreated woman could move on to find another man, or she didn’t need a man. These were pretty radical ideas in those days.”

The passage of roughly a century for some of the songs hasn’t lessened the potency of the lyrics, she explained.

“Through this music, we can see what has changed and what hasn’t changed,” Rose said.

“It turns out that racism and sexism are still very much alive. The story of the blues is a story of women asserting personal power in a time of great social anarchy. If that’s not going on now, I don’t know what is.”

As she did with the earlier, more formally theatrical version of “Blues Is a Woman,” Rose has assembled a powerful all-women musical ensemble. Saxophonist Kristen Strom, guitarist Pat Wilder, bassist Ruth Davies and drummer Daria Johnson all have returned, joined by a new member, pianist Jennifer Jolly.

The previous version of the show featured a more extensive historical narrative, with slides and film clips of the original singers.

“Now we’re doing all the singing ourselves. We’re celebrating the voices of the group,” Rose said. “Daria Johnson literally stops the show every single night, and brings people up on their feet.”

The intervening time between the two incarnations of “Blues Is a Woman” have been put to good use, she said.

“There have been some tweaks and changes. We’ve tightened the imagery and history and made it even more of a live blues show.”

You can reach staff writer Dan Taylor at 707-521-5243 or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @danarts.