About Joyce Heath
Genre
Traditional Pop
The name of singer Joyce Heath sounds like a large landmark in honor of the great writer, a lusty sort who would undoubtedly have approved of songs such as "Shake Your Can." That's more than can be said for censors when the song was released in the late '50s. Altogether, Heath recorded a dozen ditties in the company of both producers and musicians who had been active in classic blues for several decades, including piano accompanist Al Williams. During the popular heyday of this style, the Roaring Twenties, there had been very little in the way of legal obscenity issues. By the time Heath -- who may not have even existed -- plugged in her "Electrician Blues" in 1957, the listening audience itself had moved on to newer styles, including the subtler romantic glory of doo wop. The censors, of course, had no idea what was going on with the public and were no doubt encouraged furthermore by getting to take on independent labels, producers, and performers who were largely without resources.
The sheer amount of obscurity surround Heath indicates just how marginal her genre had become since the glory days of Bessie Smith. New York City's Mastertone studio logs indicate that the aforementioned pianist and other backup players worked with singer Heath on a summer of 1957 session. These songs wound up being released under the name of Angelina, a move sewing seeds of confusion rampantly in future eras when this stage name would be bandied about by a coven of performers ranging from a Brazilian pornography star to a hip-hop singer, none of whom have anything to do with Heath or a similar, perhaps really similar, vocalist of the same era named Inez Washington. Washington might have something to do with Heath, on the other hand: eventually credits from Davis, the original label releasing Angelina, indicated that it was Washington who had sung on the Angelina sides. There may have been a desire to create confusion with several legal battles about to start involving this type of material; regardless, there is enough confusion already involving who performed on some blues recordings to go around several times if all the censors fell into the ocean. Not just confusion, but outright secrecy as well: no wonder that the album by Heath, Washington, Angelina, or whoever was entitled Confidential. ~ Eugene Chadbourne
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