A saucy American blues group with songs like 'Too Much Butt' will be giving one of their final performances in Bermuda in April.

The longrunning Saffire Uppity Blues Women consisting of Ann Rabson, Gaye Adegbalola and Andra Faye will be performing 'Red Hot & Blue Jazz' on April 4 at City Hall.

The show is organised by The Azimuth Group as a fundraiser for the Physical Abuse Centre, an organisation that helps Bermudians in domestic violence situations.

Singer Ann Rabson told The Royal Gazette in a telephone interview that the group, based near Fredericksburg, Virginia, is saying farewell, but not goodbye.

"The group is disbanding," she said. "We are all going in our own directions in November.

"Officially, we have been together since 1988, although we were doing things together earlier than that."

The group became known for a cheeky, sometimes defiant blend of feminist blues.

"They say the difference between blues and gospel is that in blues you say 'oh baby' and in gospel you say, 'oh Jesus'," said Ms Rabson.

The trio members range in age from 43 to 65-years- old.

Some of their songs are 'Too Much Butt', 'Dump that Chump' (a popular request), and 'Middle Aged Boogie', to name just a few.

Some of the lyrics to 'T'Aint Nobody's Business' are:

If I go to church on Sunday

And I honkytonk all day Monday

Ain't nobody's business if I do

And if I should get a feeling

I wanna dance upon the ceiling

Ain't nobody's business, oh it ain't nobody's business if I do

"One of our most popular songs is 'Too Much Butt'," said Ms Rabson.

"The hook is there ain't no such thing as too much butt. We are known for songs that empower people, like 'Thunder Thighs'."

Although their songs may have funny titles they have received acclaim from the music industry.

Gaye Adegbalola has won a number of awards, and most recently has been nominated for Blues Music Award for Best Contemporary Female Blues Artist.

The winner will be announced in May at the 30th Blues Music Awards in Tennessee.

Ms Rabson is a member of The Boogie-Woogie Hall of fame, and has been nominated for Traditional Female Blues Artist of the Year, and had nominations for Song of the Year for 'Elevator Man' and Traditional Album of the Year for 'Music Makin' Mama.'

The decision to disband the group came about last year when Ms Rabson became extremely ill.

"I had a couple of cancers and a perforated bowel," she said. "The cancers were almost nothing compared to the other thing."

She said other than a little bit of creakiness, she is fine now physically, but was forever changed by the experience.

"It really does put life in perspective," she said. "That is one reason we are ending the band. We are all getting older.

"If we want to do other things we need to do them."

And she said the band members preferred to end Saffire on a bang rather than to let it fade out.

She compared leaving Saffire to stepping out of an airplane and hoping your parachute would open.

"It is necessary and the only thing to do," she said. "We will miss our audience. They have been wonderful and supportive. The band has meant a lot to a lot of people.

"It is not the end. Instead of seeing us as a band, they can see us three times as often as individuals. We will all continue to play."

Ms Rabson started playing professionally in high school. At first her parents discouraged her, because her brother was also into music, and they didn't want her competing with him.

"Maybe the best way for parents to get their kids interested in music is to forbid it," Ms Rabson joked.

But she persevered with her music. And today, in addition to performing with The Saffire Uppity Blues Group, she also sings solo, and has her own band The Annimators.

One thing is for sure, the Saffire Uppity Blues Women aren't retiring for lack of interest.

Ms Rabson said if anything the recent economic downturn has only increased people's interest in blues music.

"The last couple of three solo shows I did and Saffire gigs I did, have been sold out or very well attended," she said. "It could be people need blues more when they are down."

This will be Ms Rabson's first trip to Bermuda, but she and the other 'uppity' women have played all over the world including Brazil, South Africa, New Zealand and Hong Kong, among other places.

"It has been a wonderful ride," she said. "I want to go to Africa more, after the band is done."

She said it isn't just women who respond to their music.

"Men respond to it too," she said. "When we got started I don't think women were having a voice in the blues too much.

"That has changed. Now there are a lot of women speaking out and playing instruments. Women respond very strongly to the music, but men — at least good men who aren't threatened by it — also respond."

They have several recording out, their most recent being 'Having the Last Word'. 'Hot Flash' a documentary was also made about them. It was aired at a previous Bermuda International Film Festival (BIFF).

Ms Rabson said her inspirations have been Bessie Smith and Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey and piano players like Georgia White and Mary Lou Williams, among others.

"In terms of what we are going to sing in Bermuda, we never decide ahead of time what we are going to do," she said. "We respond to the feel from the audience, how we feel, and the weather and so on.

"We will probably do quite a few numbers from our new recording."

Ms Rabson said she sings a Bessie Smith song called 'Kitchen Man' that is a double entendre about food.

"Gaye sings 'I Can Do Bad All By Myself'. It is a song about not caring what other people think. Andra has a beautiful song she wrote called 'Blue Lullaby' about the experience of having a miscarriage, but it could be about anything."

She said being a female musician has had its perks and drawbacks.

"The drawback is that people look at us as a novelty," she said. "Once they hear us that goes away.

"One of the advantages is as a novelty you get more press and attention," she said.

"Other older musicians treated us much more gallantly and gently than had we been men."

She said there is an old saying, 'if you are a woman you have to be twice as good as a man'.

"I have found that absolutely to be true," she said. "There are some things in life you have to accept.

"One is that you are going to be discriminated against. There are a lot of problems in life. That is one of them. You have to accept it, or not.

"If you accept it, you have to work harder. You can't change other people, you can only change yourself."

Her advice to other young women coming up in the music business was 'Be so good that people can't ignore you'.

"And be uppity," she said. "A lot of people think it means snobby.

"It means not knowing your place.When I hear people saying that women should not play music, I say 'that is not the part of my anatomy I use to play'."

But she said being a musician and a mother did present some challenges.

She has one daughter Liz Rabson Shore and a granddaughter.

"It was probably harder on my daughter than me," Ms Rabson said. "She saw the insides of more green rooms by the time she was 12 than most people see in their whole lives.

"But it was good in the sense that she saw people being creative. Financially, it was very difficult."

Along the way Ms Rabson had to take a number of day jobs including waitressing and computer programming.

"You can't raise a kid and send her to college on a musician's salary," said Ms Rabson. "Being a waitress was probably the hardest job.

"I was a terrible waitress. I couldn't put up with stuff. I became intentionally clumsy and dropped soup on people."

When her daughter graduated from college she decided to go on the road with her music.

"A year before I went, I told the other two members of the band that I was going to be leaving to go on the road."

She thought they would just get someone else since the other two women had careers.

Gaye Adegbalola was a biochemical researcher and a bacteriologist before becoming an educator with Fredericksburg Public Schools. She was honored as Virginia State Teacher of the Year in 1982.

Earlene Lewis, then a member of the group, was in real estate.

"I figured they had careers and I was just working to put my daughter through college," she said. "They said, 'we'll take a leave of absence' so we still have insurance. They each took a year of absence and never looked back."

For more information about the Physical Abuse Centre go to www.thephysicalabusecentre.com, email them at physicalabuse@ibl.bm or telephone at 292-4366.

For more information about the Saffire Uppity Blues Women go to their website at http://www.uppityblueswomen.com/ .