Barbara
Vulso - Italy
One of the things I like best about doing this web
site is the opportunity to meet so many wonderful women of the blues around
the world. Barbara Vulso of
Genoa, Italy is one of those women!
The blues is alive and thriving in Italy.
Barbara, the lead singer of the blues band “Mama’s Pit”, is one
of the new breed of hot singers keeping the blues alive.
I was happy to get the chance to speak with her and learn more about
the blues scene in Italy. Barbara
was worried about her English, but I think her love, dedication and passion
shines right through. Enjoy!
When
and where were you born?
I
was born in Genoa, a northern Italy town, the 2th of July of the 1975, I’m a
Cancer.
Do
you come from a musical family?
I’m
the first musician in my family, but music has always been a part of our
family life.
How
old were you when you started singing?
I
started in a church’s choir, but my voice was too loud and the director
When
did you hear your first blues record and what did you feel when you
The
first blues record I heard it was “ [Soon I Will Be Done With]Troubles of
the world” sung by Mahalia Jackson at the end of a movie [“Imitation of
Life”]. I was nine
or ten and I cried, and I
didn’t know why that voice gave me that feeling.
I felt touched by her voice.
How
did you become a blues singer, music made popular by Black Americans,
in Italy?
I
started singin’ soul music and r’n’b. A friend of mine asked me about
a participation to a jazz
and blues festival, to open the concert of the jazz
singer Adrianne West, so I started. The first song was the Stevie Ray
Vaughan’s “The Sky’s Cryin’” [Originally sung and made famous by
Elmore James]. I don’t know how I did it, but I started to be a blues
singer.
Is
it difficult being a blues/soul singer in Italy?
Well,
has I told you the first time we “met”, in Italy there’s a sort of
racism to blues women, not by audience, but from the musicians. It is
very difficult to find women who
play blues. The managers don’t like women and when you play in a festival
you have to front men who tell you that you can’t be a blues women for two
reasons, you’re a white woman, so sometimes you listen at not so good black
singers but they’re black so people think
that they have to be great. I’m not racist at all, but I don’t look
at the
What
is the blues scene like in Italy?
Blues
is one of the most played genre in Italy and the great major too are sensitive
to its influence. There’re a lot of blues festivals and clubs (I opened a
club in November and every week we have a blues bands playing).
What
singers influenced you? Who do
you love to listen to?
I
have two “teachers”, the first one is the queen Aretha Franklin, I learned
so much listening to her records like “Ain’t No Way” or “ Natural
Woman”, the second is Janis
Joplin, each time I hear her voice she gives me strong feelings and I can find
in her songs so much of me.
Do
you find being a full-figured woman blues singer to be a good thing in
your
country?
I
don’t know, I never minded about this, the only thing that I can say is that
when you say you’re a musician people ask “ok, but… what’s your
job?” I started workin’ in music when I was fifteen, I went to school in
the mornin’ and in the clubs in the night…This is my job!!!
What
was it like recording your CD?
Wonderful,
simply wonderful, but one of the hardest works of my life and we were all so
tired!!!
What
do you feel like just before you go on stage?
I
'm quiet and relaxed, I learned that I need to sing for the audience, I
need to give strong feeling to people…It’s my way to communicate.
In
five years, where do you want to be with your music?
Five
years?…well, I would like to travel ‘round the world with my music, to see
different places and cultures and to learn how to understand each of them.
I’d like to have music experience in U.S. and why not…to be famous.
Not for the money, I don’t like ‘em, But to gain the chance to sing my
stories, to tell what I have inside to people all over the world!!!
For more information on Barbara Vulso, just surf on over to http://www.rpinformatica.com/mamaspit/ or email at mamaspit@hotmail.com.
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