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Welcome to my website. In the future this section will be devoted to letting
you know what is happening in the blues world of Nora Jean. I
would like to begin this section by telling you a little about me
and my music. I would also like to tell you what has
been happening lately.
Before I begin I would like everyone to know that I consider it an
honor and a privilege to be an entertainer. God blessed
me with a voice that allows me to bring His joy to others. Too
often there is a barrier between performers and their audience.
Every chance I get I like to break those barriers down. Please
feel free to come and talk to me when you see me, and feel free to
e-mail me if you have any questions for me or if you just want to
say something to me. I treasure every e-mail I receive.
My personal e-mail address is
NJBruso@aol.com. You can also e-mail me through this
website. My husband and I are very busy, but I read every
e-mail I get and promise to respond as quickly as the good Lord
allows.
It was only a few years ago that I began my come back to the blues.
I toured the world with the Jimmy Dawkins band in the mid-eighties
and the early nineties, but gave up life in the blues fast lane to
raise my two boys. I am happy to tell you that they have now
grown in fine young men. I was just beginning my come back to
the blues when I met a man who in six short months became my
husband. The first question he ever asked me was whether I had
a CD he could buy. I told him that someday soon I hoped to
have one of my own. Six months to the day later we were
married and two months after that I had my own CD. (Between
you and me, I let him have a copy for free.) Fairy tales can
still happen in your forties.
My first CD, “Nora Jean Bruso Sings the Blues,” has exceeded my
greatest expectations. It started out as a way to get me back
into the blues world. I asked some of my oldest and closest
friends in the business to help me with it, and everyone involved
with the CD put their heart and soul into the project. My CD
ended up on Living Blues radio charts for many months, and made its
way to the top of XM Radio’s play lists. At the end of 2003,
it made lists of the top blues CDs of the year all across the
country, including the top 10 list on my hometown Public Radio
Station, WBEZ in Chicago. In early 2004, Chicago’s Museum of
Science and Industry named me one of the ten great women in Chicago
Blues, and, in a sentence that took my breath away, wrote, “There is
talk of Nora Jean as the next Queen of the Blues.”
There is something that I want to tell you about my first CD.
My first CD is about my musical influences. I wanted to let
everyone know where my heart belongs musically. The four
Howlin’ Wolf songs on the CD were the first songs I heard my father
sing when I was a child. The first song I ever sang was
“Howlin’ for my Darling.” I was only four or five at the time.
I put these songs on my CD with love and respect for my father,
Bobby Lee Wallace, and my mother, Ida Lee Wallace. They worked
harder than I can tell you to raise their sixteen children, of which
I am the seventh child. I was born in Greenwood, Mississippi
and grew up on the Equen Plantation, which is located on Highway 49
about halfway between Greenwood and Clarksdale. My family
worked in the cotton fields during the week and sang the blues on
the weekends. The sounds I heard at my grandmother’s Juke
House every Friday and Saturday night are still in my mind. I
sang about them in the song, “Miss Mae’s Juke Joint,” on my second
CD, “Going Back to Mississippi,” (Severn, 2004). These are the
sounds I will sing as long as God wills it so.
Most of the rest of my first CD is filled with two types of songs.
The first is songs that comprise the other half of my musical
heritage: the blues of the West Side of Chicago, where I settled for
over twenty-five years after moving to Chicago from Mississippi.
The song “Can’t Shake These Blues,” which I sang with my mentor,
Jimmy Dawkins, and two Magic Sam Songs, “All Your Love,” and “He
Belongs To Me,” represent the raw West side sound that is as much a
part of my music as my Mississippi roots. The second type is
songs that I have performed regularly in my shows over the years,
and fans have come to expect me to sing and get upset when I don’t.
I wanted to make them available for my fans. The songs, “When
You Leave Don’t Take Nothing,” “If That’s What You Wanna’ Do,”
Member’s Only,” “It Makes Me So Mad,” and Big Boss Man,” fall into
this category.
The remaining four songs on the CD have special stories. The
second song, “I’m Leaving You,” was written by Eddie Shaw as a
wedding present for my husband and I. The fifth song, “Doin’
the Shout,” was included because John Lee Hooker is one of my all
time favorite bluesmen and I couldn’t conceive of leaving him off a
CD about my influences. I made the decision to include this
particular song while listening to his greatest hits in the car on
the way to the first day of recording for the CD. The seventh
song, “Untrue Lover,” was the first song I ever wrote. It was
released as a single in 1985 on Jimmy Dawkins’ Leric Label. I
was never satisfied with how it turned out because I did not think
it was bluesy enough. I always wanted to re-record the song as
I heard it in my mind. It took me nearly twenty years, but I
finally did. Finally, there is the eighth song, “I’d Rather Go
Blind.” This Etta James classic, covered so well by Koko
Taylor, was sung as homage to the great ladies of the blues. I
sang this song with love and respect for all the women of the blues
who blazed the path on which I walk every day of my life.
Without question, the two greatest female influences on my singing
have been Mahalia Jackson, the greatest gospel singer of all time,
and Koko Taylor. I first saw Mahalia sing in the movie,
“Imitation of Life,” when I was a teenager. I have sought to
pattern my singing after her ever since. My greatest female
influence in the blues is Koko Taylor. Koko sings the type of
blues I love and I often perform several of her songs live.
Koko is an incredibly classy lady, and one of the kindest, nicest,
and most genuine people in the music business.
Everything about her—from her incredible gowns to the time she
dedicates to helping others—is worth emulating. I am honored
to call Koko my mentor and my friend. She is a truly wonderful
person.
Sometimes I wonder where the blues is going today. With both
of my first two CDs I wanted you to know where I am going.
Call it traditional blues, hard blues, old school blues, whatever
you like, it is my blues and I love it. The only other music I
love as much is gospel. On any given night you may hear me throw
some Tina Turner or Tracy Chapman into my show depending on the
audience. I have even been known to perform a rap song called
“Superstar,” that my oldest son wrote for me when I have an audience
of mainly young people. But I always begin and end with the
blues. It is my passion and my calling to try to keep this
great music alive.
My husband occasionally jokes that whites and blacks in this country
have three things in common: they love America, they share a
Christian faith, and those over forty can’t understand why those
under forty listen to the music that they do. I feel
privileged to sing the music that is my heritage for you. The
artistic achievements of my ancestors are not only one of their
greatest contributions to America, but also one of America’s
greatest contributions to the world The blues is great
American music and God willing I will be singing it for you for
many, many years to come.
Summer 2004
One of the biggest challenges
my husband and I have faced since I began my comeback to the blues
has been balancing the demands of producing and distributing a
record with a hectic performing schedule. Quite honestly, at
times the work involved has been overwhelming for two people.
This leads to my blockbuster news for the summer of 2004. I have
signed a multi-record recording contract with Severn Records, an
excellent roots label located in Maryland. There is more good
news. I have spent much of the last several months working on
my first recording for Severn titled, “Going Back to Mississippi.”
It will be released in September of 2004, but advance copies will be
ready in August.
I am very excited about my new record. The biggest departure
from my first record is that I wrote every song on this record.
Also, Rob Waters, my producer, co-wrote two of the songs with me,
“I’ve Got Two Men,” and “Tearful Blues.” (He wrote the music
and I wrote the lyrics. On “Two Men,” my friend Ora Murray
contributed some lyrics as well.) These songs represent a
departure from anything I have tried to sing before. “Two Men”
is a rumba, and “Tearful Blues,” is a jazz-blues composition.
I worked with great jazz-blues guitarist Dave Specter on both of
these songs. I am very pleased with the results and hope you will be
too.
The rest of the record contains songs about my Mississippi roots.
If you look at the liner notes you can see a picture of the actual
sign for the Equen Plantation where I grew up. I took this
picture late this spring when I visited my mother who still lives
close by. Another tie to my native state is that two of the
guitarists on the record, Carl Weathersby and Jimmie Jacobs (Carl’s
cousin), are also native Mississippians. Most of the songs are
straight ahead blues, but two of the songs, “Broken Heart,” and
“Another Part of “You,” represent the soul-blues tradition that was
a part of my teenage years. Just so you know, “my baby” in the
song “Going Back to Mississippi,” is the blues.
I debuted several of the songs off my new record at the Chicago
Blues Festival in on June 11, 2004. On July 24, I will be
performing at the Pocono Blues Festival in Pennsylvania, and I look
forward to singing my new songs.
The blues is alive and well and I am glad to be a part of it.
I thank you for visiting my website and hope you will check back
often. There are many exciting things going on and this is
where to find out about them. God Bless You.
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