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there, just to show them that I wanted to put them in my book, but I ran out of space. She’s like no!
You’re outta space. [Laughing] Then it was also her idea, I have 12 legends as she calls them in the
book. Legends and that was sorta her idea too. I did a survey on Facebook. I would have picked some

different legends because I think today’s women look up to the Koko Taylor’s, the Ruth Brown’s and
all. There’s a whole bunch of legends I think from the 1950’s onwards that women look up to. But she
did want to include women from the 20’s and 30’s, which I thought were kinda overdone and already
talked about but unless you’re putting up the money, you don’t get all the say in a book. She financed
it and so I didn’t actually get my way with everything. [Laughing] Like I said, I know the blues, I know
the blues. She’s like, well I’ve gotta sell books. and I’m like, okay. You know what I mean. You have to
give in sort of. You know you and I we’ve spent so many years in blues, we know things that she

wouldn’t know. But overall, I was nervous when it came out if everyone would like it, but it seems to
be getting great response.
BiTS:
I’m hardly surprised by that. Tell me, how did you go about doing the interviews? Were they person
to person? Telephone calls or were they emails, or what?
Eddie Mac Scoundrels at the Blues Club
JN:
My publisher came up with a Q&A and I told all the artists that they did not have to follow the Q&A.
They could write their own story. That it was just a guideline and we emailed them this guideline, but
we said you could write whatever you want. You could just not answer all the questions. You can
answer whatever questions you want and then there were some artists that referred me to what they

called ‘an excellent write-up of themselves’
that they thought I should use instead of
them filling out the Q&A. Like Terrie Odabi
has sent in an article and an interview with
a Finnish writer. I think I had about four in
there that were references. Mary Lane had
a write-up. Barbara Carr, she referred me

to this write-up in a magazine. A few women
didn’t want to do the Q&A and they thought
that what’s written about them in these
particular interviews were better than what
they could say again about themselves.
BiTS:
By comparison with the others, Liz
Mandeville has a very very long screed that

she wrote about her personal development
really, I suppose.
JN:
Yeah, she has the longest one, I thought. I
thought at first that Sister Cookie did, but I
think Liz has the longest one, that’s why she
only has one photo. [Laughs] She does have
the longest one and I’m surprised they
didn’t edit that more 'cos the editor’s job is

to make everything fit and you know who
almost didn’t make it in the book even though she had sent in her stuff quite early was Peaches Staten.
I’m like, oh my God, you guys left out Peaches Staten, she’s my good friend. She toured the world,