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Heartbreakers, man-takers, vamps, tramps and the girl next door—through the decades they've all shown up in song. Songwriters are forever trying to decipher the feminine mystique, and singers never tire of crooning about the many aspects of the female spirit.
 In the spotlight on Riverwalk Jazz, New Orleans' Topsy Chapman joins The Jim Cullum Jazz Band at The Landing to separate 'sophisticated ladies' from 'red-hot mommas.' And it takes a versatile artist like Topsy to cover a range of style and mood—from the growl of "Aggravatin' Papa Don't You Two-Time Me" to the purr of "Time on My Hands and You in My Arms."
Topsy says she thinks of herself as an actress on a movie set when she performs songs like these. She says, "I step into character and just feel whatever she's feeling." This week,Topsy is our guide through a program of 'hot rhythm' numbers, blues, and a torch song or two.
 Sophie Tucker (1884-1966) billed herself as 'The Last of the Red Hot Mommas,' but she wasn't the first woman to build a career telling off-color jokes and belting out bawdy songs. Her act was inspired by the success of Deep South blues queens like Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey and her Rabbit Foot Minstrels. Offstage, Tucker was a fiery union organizer and great philanthropist. She blazed a trail for other finger-shaking hotties—from Bessie Smith to Tina Turner and Madonna.
Topsy Chapman celebrates the spirit of 'red hot mommas' everywhere with the irreverent "'Tain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do," a classic of early blues recorded in 1923 by both Alberta Hunter and Bessie Smith—two giants of the genre.
 On the opposite end of the spectrum she offers songs about home, like "Back in Your Own Back Yard" and the haunting "I've Got the Blues for Home Sweet Home." The Jim Cullum Jazz Band presents instrumental renditions of "Sophisticated Lady" and "There Ain't No Sweet Man Worth the Salt of My Tears." And Topsy sings the classic Billie Holiday torch songs "In My Solitude" and "Time on My Hands."
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Photos & Video Highlights
Swinging at the Pearl
with Catherine Russell & Dick Hyman
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CDs
Topsy Chapman
Books
Ma Rainey and the Classic Blues Singers, Derrick Stewart-Baxter
Sites
Classic Blues Singers
Streaming Video
"Trouble in Mind," Topsy Chapman
St. Louis Blues, Bessie Smith
"Only the Right Man Can Do Me Wrong," Sophie Tucker, 1930
Streaming Audio
"Some of These Days," Ethel Waters
"I Ain't Got Nobody," Sophie Tucker
"I've Got the Blues For Home Sweet Home," Oscar Shaw, 1916
"'Tain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do," Bessie Smith
"Aggravatin' Papa," Bessie Smith
Text based on Riverwalk Jazz script by Margaret Moos Pick © 2010
Photos
Ma Rainey and her band, 1923
Image courtesy examiner.com
New Orleans vocalist Topsy Chapman, Pearl Stable 2009
Photo by Jamie Karutz
Sophie Tucker
Photo courtesy Reminiscing with Sissle & Blake by Robert Kimball & William Bolcom
Alberta Hunter
Photo courtesy jazzagemusic.blogspot.com
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