Highlighting women who play the blues comes naturally to Ozark Blues Society President Liz Lottman, but her Sept. 7 Women in the Blues showcase will be her first opportunity to launch a local show.

A tireless blues education advocate, mentor and singer, Lottman works with both OBS and Clarkdale’s Pinetop Perkins Foundation to mentor the blues musicians of tomorrow while taking care of those still around.

The Women in the Blues showcase is a chance to do both by giving a stage to blues veterans and up-and-comers alike while sharing the blues locally.

“I’ll be curious to see how people react to these powerful bands,” Lottman said. “Women aren’t wusses!”

Headliner Joanna Connor has spent nearly half a century playing the blues with a sound that’s aggressive and a method so quick and smooth you can barely see her fingers hit the notes.

Her story starts like a movie plot. In 1984 she packed up a guitar and an amp and left her home of Worcester, Mass., for Chicago. Just three weeks after she arrived, Lonnie Brooks helped the 21-year-old get her first job, playing guitar for John Littlejohn.

She caught Brooks’s attention, she said, because he could tell she was interested in how he played.

“When you’re a musician, you can tell when somebody’s watching you casually and enjoying the show or if they’re musically involved in what you’re doing,” she said. When he noticed her thick New England accent and found out that she had moved to Chicago to play the blues, he invited her to play for him.

“Really, there was no women doing it, playing electric guitar, maybe here or there over the years,” she explained. Her abilities eventually led to her playing her guitar with the likes of Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Otis Rush, Sammy Lawhorn, Pinetop Perkins and Hubert Sumlin — just to name a few.

“It was a cultural immersion. It was awe-inspiring because those are in my idols,” she said from Jamaica, where she lives now. Echoing Lottman, Connor said that early days playing was fortifying.

“They taught me how to be strong in who I was and to be confident musically and to express myself and to bring the fire because all of them had so much passion in playing,” she said. “Buddy Guy still does at 88 years old! They were all very unique people and taught me to embrace your own character and bring that to your music.”

By 1987, she recorded her first album and has released many albums since. She’s also held residencies alongside some of her heroes like Dion Payton at Checkerboard Lounge and later held her own residency at Kingston Mines and the House of Blues in Chicago.

Lottman caught one of Connor’s performances at Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale last year at the behest of Diane Rudolph, vice president of OBS.

“Our jaws just dropped,” Lottman said. “She’s of the caliber of Eric Gales and Joe Bonamassa. She’s right up there with them on her skills, ability and stage persona.”

Connor headlines the showcase with her trio of young and upcoming Chicago musicians: Nathan Weil on drums and Aidan Epstein on bass. Also performing will be the Tina Cossey Band out of Central Arkansas and Lottman’s own Divas on Fire.

Looking back, Connor said that her drive to be the best helped to sustain her in her decades in the music industry.

“What kept me motivated was I wanted to be as good as the men or better,” she said. Her advice to young women in the business sounds corny, but it’s worked for her, “Just be yourself and be the best player you can be.”

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FAQ

Women in the Blues showcase featuring Joanna Connor and the Wrecking Crew

WHEN — 7 p.m. Sept. 7

WHERE — Meteor Guitar Gallery in Bentonville

TICKETS — $25-$30 online.

INFO — https://obsnwa.clubexpress.com

NEXT UP — OBS hosts a fundraiser Oct. 26 at Meteor Guitar Gallery to send the winners of the Blues Challenge to the International Blues Challenge in Memphis this January. Catch the OBS Blues Jam at the Music Depot in Rogers on the second and fourth Thursday of each month.