Del Rey

Del Rey (born December 22, 1959) is an American blues singer and guitarist. Rey specializes in blues and jazz from 1900 to 1950. She developed a Women in American Music concert/lecture series to provide an historical and cultural look at the contribution of women to music in the early 20th century. She is recognized for her syncopated style of guitar and intricate finger picking. Her father bought a second, smaller guitar, and Rey and her mother would follow along to Frederick Noad's guitar lessons on PBS in their trailer park's rec room where there was a television. Rey told a reporter, "I like to tell people that I approach music with an autodidact trailer-park aesthetic". In the same year, Rey released a cassette-only recording "Chartreuse".

By 1993, Rey had her own label, Hobemian Records, and released Boogie Mysterioso, followed by Hot Sauce in 1995.

Women in American Music Rey developed a lecture series called Women in American Music, featuring female musicians such as Memphis Minnie, Lovie Austin, Rose Maddox, and Mary Osborne. The series, which she calls her "Memphis ministry," is an historical and cultural look at contributions of women to the music of the 1900-1950s. The academic program includes blues, swing jazz, Hispanic and hillbilly music.

In 1997, with a commission from the Guitar Festival in Dubendorf, Switzerland, she created a touring art exhibit called Women with Guitar. The exhibit includes historical photos and archival film footage from the early 20th century of influential women pioneers in the early jazz, country, and blues movements such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Memphis Minnie, Maybelle Carter, Lydia Mendoza and others.

"Being female, I have an idea of what it is to be a subgroup, where people have preconceptions of what you should and should not do. So I think that these programs, and my own music, show the reach of what women can do and have accomplished. We have a place in history that can no longer be denied". — Del Rey