|
Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZBALL, Marcia(b 20 March 1949, Orange Texas) Pianist, songwriter, country/ soul/ blues singer. All the women in her family played piano; growing up in Vinton, Louisiana just across the border, she began taking lessons at age five. She learned old Tin Pan Alley tunes from her grandmother's collection, and more modern and popular music from her aunt. At about age 13 she discovered the blues, blown away by a performance by Irma Thomas. She started at Louisiana State University in 1966, and played some of her first gigs with a blues-based rock band called Gum, the repertoire including more than one Irma Thomas song.She graduated in 1970 and set out for San Francisco, but her car broke down in Austin, Texas: Austin's magic wouldn't let her leave, and she went native. She performed in the city's clubs with a progressive country band called Freda and the Firedogs, and began writing. Around this time too, she immersed herself in New Orleans piano players, especially Professor Longhair. When the Firedogs broke up in 1974, she launched her solo career; she landed a Capitol contract and released her first album Circuit Queen in 1978. Freda and the Firedogs Live came out on Big Wheel in 1980, followed by six critically acclaimed albums on Rounder: Soulful Dress '84, Hot Tamale Baby '85, Gatorhythms '89, Blue House '94 and Let Me Play With Your Poodle '97. She was now established, her music an unclassifiable piano-based gumbo of swing, jazz, blues and county; it is known to make people have to dance. Meanwhile, with Angela Strehli and Lou Ann Barton she made Dreams Come True on Antone's in 1990, and a similar 'three divas of the blues' project appeared on Rounder in early '98, with Tracy Nelson and Irma Thomas: Sing It! was nominated for both a Grammy and a W. C. Handy Blues Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. She received the Handy that year as Contemporary Female Vocalist of the Year, and was nominated again in 2000, '01 and '02 for Best Blues Instrumentalist/ Keyboards; and in 1999 she and her band appeared in the nationally televised Public Television special called In Performance At The White House, with B.B. King and Della Reese. She has been featured on TV's Austin City Limits and National Public Radio's Fresh Air and Piano Jazz. She released Presumed Innocent on Alligator in 2001, and appeared in Piano Blues, the film directed by Clint Eastwood for Martin Scorsese's The Blues series on PBS television nationwide in 2003. So Many Rivers 2003, Live! Down The Road 2005 and Peace, Love & BBQ 2008 are on Alligator. After Pinetop Perkins had won the Handy for Keyboard Musician of the year several years in a row, Ball received it in 2005, '06 and '07, by which time the name of the award had (boringly) changed to just 'Blues Award'. |