33 f
Jo Ann and Pete Emery at the 1978 Bracknell Folk Festival
The hype was also there in the original sleevenotes of Jo Ann Kelly. “Until Jo Ann Kelly arrived,” frothed journalist Stephen Calt on the back cover, “no white ever truly mastered the real Mississippi blues.”
“Rather than thinking, ‘wowee, I’m going for it,’” Dave says of the CBS propa- ganda, “Jo never liked any of that. She always did what she wanted to do and I don’t think any commerciality came in to it.” Shortly afterwards, CBS booked Jo onto two exhausting, lonely US tours: one with Johnny Winter, and one solo. “She just upped and left in the middle of the night,” says Dave. “It didn’t go down terribly well with CBS. But she wasn’t bothered.” Adds Pete: “The idea of becoming too much of a public figure was daunting. She was always walking to another beat than the industry. People [in record labels] would think ‘she’s a person who doesn’t really play ball.’” A poor experience with a management com- pany in the early 1970s, which left her bankrupt and disillusioned, hardened her mistrust of the suits.
Mann And John Miller was released on Perls’ Blue Goose label and, unlike Jo Ann Kelly, this was recorded in a studio. “All in all, it was a very difficult session,” Jo said in 1978. “I really didn’t like Nick’s attitude very much on those songs – saying things like, ‘OK, Kelly, get in the studio and sing, you made a mistake there, you were out of tune.’” Although she enjoyed working with Fahey and Mann, “there wasn’t a great deal of time to do the album, and I think we were all having personal problems at the time.”
N In the early 1970s, Jo met guitarist Pete
Emery. They fell in love, and worked togeth- er, too. “She was a great self-accompanist,” he remembers. “I think in some ways I got the job because she was fed up of going around on her own. A lot of people who liked her for her authenticity didn’t like my
ick Perls and Jo continued to have a working relationship, at least for a while longer. In 1972, Jo Ann Kelly With John Fahey, Alan Seidler, Woody
presence, because I wasn’t really playing standard country-blues guitar. But, in a way, Jo didn’t either.” Indeed, her guitar was dif- fuse in influence – she cited Fred McDowell (who had loved her voice and invited her to sing with him on stage in London in 1969) and Robert Johnson as touchstones, but “my guitar was always much more of an approxi- mation, a much rougher thing” she said in 1978. Jo and Pete also recorded together, 1976’s Do It. Sonically it was simple, with very little overdubbing; but, as with Jo Ann Kelly, its strength is in Jo’s versatility and feel. A highlight is the impish opener, Where Is My Good Man, enhanced by the washboard of John Pilgrim and Mike Piggot’s violin.
“Although she was an expert in country blues,” Pete recalls, “she was also a lot broader than that. It’s not really reflected in her recordings.” Jo attracted attention from electrified blues artists; she rehearsed with The Yardbirds and, at one point, Canned Heat asked her to join them.
Continued on Page 53
Photo: Steve Gillett
Photo: Dave Peabody
Photo: Brian Newton
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