Joanna Connor — queen of blues rock guitar

Joanna Connor Maryam Wilcher photo

I’ve been covering the North Atlantic Blues Festival (winner of the 2002 “Keeping the Blues Alive” Award for Promoters of the Year) ever since it began in 1994. I have seen some impressive lineups of artists, and so I’m happy to say this year’s edition is another in the continuing quest to bring the best of the blues to our fair state. When it came to which one of the 11 acts to interview, I chose a new name for myself: Joanna Connor, who’s been called the queen of the blues rock guitar. She has a powerful backing band of musicians she’s dubbed the “Wrecking Crew 22” which includes Shaun “Gotti” Calloway on bass and Jason “J-Roc” Edwards on drums and vocals. Upon visiting her website I sampled one album at random and less than a minute into the first song, I was totally hooked, but more on that later. I had been given her number by Jamie Isaacson, one of the two founders of the festival, so I reached out to her to schedule a telephone interview. When the day and time came, I gave her a call.

Q: Where am I reaching you?
Connor: I live right outside of Chicago.

Q: Well, let’s get started, shall we? Have you played at the North Atlantic Blues Festival before?
Connor: Yeah, it was either in 2014 or 2016, one of the two; and then way back in like 1999, before where it is now.

Q: Neat, a little history there, then. I’ve been listening to the “4801 South Indiana” album — is that your latest?
Connor: No, I’ve one actually coming out next week called “Best of Me” which is very different from that album.

Q: Is the new one like a greatest hits collection?
Connor: No, it sounds like it but it’s just one of the songs on the record.

Q: Now you’ve released quite a few albums, I believe, over the years?
Connor: I think it’s 15.

Q: Wow, that’s impressive. Now, when you plan out a set, is it hard to put together a list?
Connor: No, we’ve played so much together, I mean, we perform all the time, so it’s like a well-oiled machine, and I don’t ever have a set list. I kind of go with what the feeling of the day is and how the crowd is reacting and what we’re feeling, so we keep it a little loose. There may be two or three songs we always do but the rest we kind of figure out what we’re going to do; but we’re definitely going to feature a couple of songs from “4801…” and about four songs from the new record. So I know at least half the set will be the last two records.

Q: Decent. Now, what’s your take on the state of the blues nowadays?
Connor: Umm, oh boy (chuckle) that’s a loaded question! I mean, there’s some great things happening out there, there are some younger people coming onboard that are doing some nice things. I was kind of ahead of the curve in some ways because a lot of my early records were really like blends of different styles from the blues base. I got a lot of flak from that, but now there’s a lot of music I’m not hearing the blues in it at all. But I’m not a purist. I believe all music and art forms have to grow and people have to express themselves in what they feel. People got to do what they got to do.

Q: I guess it’s like, you do what you feel, and that’s how the blues began, right?
Connor: Um-hmm, exactly!

Q: So, what’s the flavor of the new album?
Connor: Well, it’s the first time I’ve really collaborated with another musician to the extent that I am with my bass player. He’s a phenomenal bass player, people talk about him like he’s like Victor Wooten. He’s on a very high level, but he also knows how to play the groove. He and I wrote the whole record together. He’s a lot younger than me — he’s like 34 — so he’s a few generations from me, but he’s from a very musical family.

Q: What did he bring to the album?
Connor: Well, there’s a lot of elements like gospel, blues, funk, a little jazz, just a little bit of soul. We’ve got a lot of nice guests on there, we have horns on some of the cuts, and I really like the record a lot.

Q: Was it hard sharing the writing chores with someone else after doing it on your own for so long?
Connor: No, I never was one to say that it has to be me, it’s just that I never found people to work with that I was like, “Well, they’re doing this better than I can do it!” I felt with Shaun, the bassist, that he had a real gift for writing so I was more than happy to collaborate with him.

Q: Now you said the album will be coming out in June?
Connor: June 9.

Q: So it’ll be hot-off-the-presses when you hit the North Atlantic Blues Festival.
Connor: Yes, and we’ll have it with us!

Q: Do you get up to Maine often to play?
Connor: No, not at all. I mean, we’re starting to tour more. We were supposed to start touring heavily and then the pandemic hit, but now we’re hitting the road again, and, well, Maine’s pretty far from Chicago (laughter).

Q: (Chuckle) Yeah, you’re right about that. Now, just out of curiosity, when did you start all this?
Connor: Well, my first album was in 1989 on Blind Pig Records but, gosh, I’ve been doing music professionally since I was 17 and that was 1979.

Q: That’s dedication!
Connor: (Laughter) Or stupidity!

Q: No, no, not sounding the way you do, stupidity doesn’t even enter into that. And when I was listening to a track on your website, it was rhythmically incredible, a real tight pocket, and I was like, “Oh, man, this is who I want to work with!”
Connor: Thanks for noticing that because I’m very rhythmically oriented, all of my music comes in a rhythmic sense, no matter what it is; and a lot of people don’t even recognize it, so thank you, you’re one of the few people that noticed that!

Q: I just looked it up and it was the first track on your “Believe It” album.
Connor: That was my first record — that was 1989 (laughter).

Q: Oh my word, that’s cool, that is just cool! But now to my final question: Is there anything, Joanna, that you’d like me to pass on to the folks reading this article?
Connor: Well, just that my band and I play from our hearts and we kind of like think like jazz players — we’re very into improv, we listen intensely to each other, we play off of each other, there is no pretense, it’s just about the music. So if people want to come and experience some unadulterated, right-from-the-gut playing, they should come out.

Lucky Clark, a 2018 “Keeping the Blues Alive” Award winner, has spent more than 50 years writing about good music and the people who make it. He can be reached at luckyc@myfairpoint.net if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

Comments are not available on this story.

Send questions/comments to the editors.

filed under: