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you’ve gotta put her in. I think
they cut out a couple of other
ones that I had.

All the women in the interviews
are living, breathing, touring
artists. I had Big Time Sarah in
there that was written by

Jennifer Littleton, B.L.U.E.S. on
Halstead bar in Chicago and that
was her hang out, Big Time
Sarah. Big Time Sarah was so
much of my blues upbringing,
but she got cut ‘cos it didn’t

really fit the format and they
needed the room for Peaches
Staten. I also had Brenda Taylor.
I wanted to meet with the
Taylors because I thought that
the Taylors should be

represented. Eddie Taylor, I
thought that somebody like
Demetria should be in there, but
Demetria lost her brother during
the write-up of this and I think
she was devastated. Eddie Taylor Junior. But then her older sister wanted to be in it and what she

sent in was mostly about her father and her father’s legacy and it didn’t really fit the format, so
they cut her too. But I was sad 'cos I thought the Taylor family, Eddie Taylor Junior I think is an
artist that deserves more recognition than he gets in the big blues influential artists that influenced
others, don’t you think, kinda, that Eddie Taylor Junior is one of those guys? Anyway, what my goal
was, was to feature diversity. I wanted to get women from as far reach as I could but it also had to
be about my photographs, so 90% of the photographs, 'cos that’s the reason we’re doing the book,

are mine, and then at some point there were some women that I wanted really badly in my book
that I didn’t actually have good enough photographs of them. I just wanted them in my book, and I
wanted women like say they only had a woman drummer, even though I reached out to some women
drummers, but they didn’t get back to me. Or didn’t see it until it was too late. For instance, Tia
Gouttebel in France. I photographed her, but she didn’t really like them. She was like, oh that was
a bad time in my life, and I’d go, well just send me some. Then Dawn Tyler Watson. I had some

photographs of her, but they weren’t really that great so then Laura Carboni, who’s a great
photographer and her best friend, she sent me some photos and I put Dawn Tyler Watson in at the
last minute. What I had to do was change my mindset and say, Jennifer, give it up. Like Barbara
Blue, I never met Barbara Blue although we’ve been talking, we’ve been friends for years. I’ve never
met her, never had any photographs but she calls herself the queen of Beale Street. I thought, God,

I’ve gotta have somebody from Memphis in there [laughing]. You can’t leave Memphis out and so
I tried to reach out to women as far as I could. From Florida to California, like Debbie Davies in