A Classic Blueswoman’s Tribute to Classic Blueswomen

Beareather Reddy at The Jalopy Theatre/ December 17, 2021/ © 2021-photo courtesy of B.L.Howard Productions

Beareather Reddy is a vocalist, actress, and producer, native to Sylvania, Georgia. With a B.A. in performance arts from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and a career as an associate director for ABC news programs, Reddy retired from her corporate job and focused all her time on her love of music and community outreach.

Reddy tells Brooklyn Roads that her decision to make and perform music has been with her from an early age. “I almost feel like the decision to sing and be involved in music was made for me,” says Reddy.

Beareather Reddy and The Brown Liquor Sounds at the Jalopy Theatre / December 17, 2021/ © 2021-photo courtesy of B.L.Howard Productions

Music has surrounded Reddy since she was a little girl, having first come into her life at the age of four on the cotton fields of Georgia. While sitting on the fields with other children watching family members work, she would hear the sweet and soulful sounds as they allowed music to help the time pass.

“While they worked, they sang spirituals, work songs and field hollers,” explains Reddy. “Each voice complimenting the other in a beautiful woven tapestry of sound. These songs seemed to make them feel better about the work and their life situations.” This pushed Beareather Reddy in her adult life, to create the euphoria she felt when listening to music, specifically blues music, or as she calls it, “a music of the soul.”

The end result of this was Reddy’s 2011 album  Beareather Sings The Classic Blueswomen. Reddy sings lilting renditions of well-known songs originally performed by women in the industry back in the 1920’s and 30’s, including Ma Rainey, Ida Cox  and others.  Reddy calls it “a historical tribute to seven Classic Blues Women.”

Bobby Rush On Stage At The Big Eyed Blues Festival -October 10,2015 / © photo courtesy of B.L.Howard Producttions

Beareather Reddy and Bobby Rush Share A Moment at The Big Eyed Blues Fest /October 10, 2015 / © 2015-photo courtesy of B.L.Howard Productions

Reddy believes her choice of singing blues stems from living in Brooklyn for a majority of her life. “From the time I relocated to Brooklyn, there was excitement and music all around, but I didn’t hear a lot of blues music,” says Reddy.

This lack of genre also inspired her to create her own production company, Big Eyed Productions (presently Big-Eyed Enterprises, Inc), where she offered the surrounding communities opportunity to hear the beauty that Blues has to offer. In 2006, she started the annual Big Eyed Blues Festival, featuring an array of blues artists, including Bobby Rush and Solomon Hicks.

Reddy plans to take her album, now a full performance piece, to new venues over time. With her band, The Brown Liquor Sounds, she tells Brooklyn Roads that “this show is a work in progress that I envision will continue to grow and blossom into a great body of work that will delight the audience for years to come.”