TWO FISTED MAMA!
AL 4777
Katie returns with Vasti Jackson and The Memphis Horns.
"One saucy pianist-vocalist who knows how to dish it out."ROLLING STONE".
Includes Red Negligee, Pussycat Moan, more

NO FOOLIN'!
AL 4803
A fiery dose of barrelhouse bravado...Upbeat, downhome energy."CD REVIEW".
C. J. Chenier guests. Includes Those Lonely, Lonely Nights (with Lonnie Brooks), I'm Bad, more.

THE ALLIGATOR RECORDS 20TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR
AL 107/8 (double CD)
Live Two Fisted Mama, Pussycat Moan, Lord, I Wonder and Those Lonely, Lonely Nights,
plus great performances by Koko Taylor, Lonnie Brooks, and more.

ALLIGATOR RECORDS CHRISTMAS COLLECTION
XMAS 9201
Katie Decks The Halls With Boogie Woogie on this holiday offering!
"Superb...an ideal stocking filler."BLUES & RHYTHM".
Also features Charles Brown, "Gatemouth" Brown, 11 more.

Webster toured the country with Redding, and can be heard on his LIVE AT THE WHISKEY A-GO-GO album. Unable to join Redding on tour in 1967 because she was pregnant, Webster was not on the plane that took Redding's life. Devastated by his death, she kept a very low profile until the early 1980s, when she made her debut tour of Europe. European audiences couldn't get enough of Webster, and she returned over 30 times. During the 1980s, Webster began to win over her American audience at numerous high profile festival gigs, including the Chicago Blues Festival, The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, The Boulder Blues Festival, The Newport Folk Festival, The San Francisco Blues Festival and many others. "She can floor the timid listener," raved the Boston Globe. "Webster can say more about the pain of betrayal with one low, sad growl, and more about the joy of fighting back against cruel life with one teasing roll of her eyes, than most could write in a book."

In 1988, Webster teamed up with Alligator Records and went from a cult blues legend to internationally recognized phenomenon. She received accolades from a host of publications, including "Rolling Stone" and "Keyboard." She was nominated for three W.C. Handy Awards (the Grammy of the blues community) and, in March of 1989, performed for the first time on national television on NBC's "Sunday Night" program hosted by David Sanborn. In 1992, Webster joined lablemates Koko Taylor, Lonnie Brooks, Elvin Bishop and Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials on a cross-country tour celebrating Alligator's 20th Anniversary. THE ALLIGATOR RECORDS 2OTH ANNIVERSARY TOUR album documented the proceedings, as did the Bob Mugge documentary, "Pride And Joy: The Story Of Alligator Records."

In 1993, Webster was felled by a stroke while touring in Greece, and lost some of the use of her left hand and almost all of her eyesight. But her magnificent voice and wonderful right hand, not to mention her inimitable spirit, kept her going strong. She continued to appear at selected festivals. Even though her health wouldn't support extended touring, her final performances were filled with the same boogie-woogie drive and spirit that originally earned Katie Webster the title Swamp Boogie Queen.

At the time of her death on September 9, 1999 at the age of 63, Katie Webster was acknowledged as the one of the premier blues artists of her generation. Webster's sassy and sensous blend of barrelhouse boogie-woogie, New Orleans R&B, Gulf Coast swamp-pop, deep bayou blues and Southern gospel-flavored soul placed her among the most in-demand blues artists in the country and made her a favorite at festivals and concert halls all over the world. As a teen, Webster was already hailed as South Louisiana's reigning piano queen. She recorded on more than 500 singles during the 1950s and 1960s. She joined Otis Redding's touring band in 1965 and enjoyed a successful solo career in the 1980s, releasing albums on Arhoolie and a number of European labels. She signed with Alligator Records in 1988, cutting three albums for the label: 1988's SWAMP BOOGIE QUEEN (with guests Bonnie Raitt and Robert Cray), 1989's TWO FISTED MAMA!, and 1991's NO FOOLIN'. In February 1999, Alligator released DELUXE EDITION, a collection of Webster's greatest recorded performances from her years with the label.

ORIGINAL LINER NOTES

A piano-pounding institution on the southern Louisiana swamp blues scene during the late '50s and early '60s, Katie Webster later grabbed a long-deserved share of national recognition with three recent Alligator albums before a 1993 stroke temporarily shelved her.
Poor Kathryn Thorne had to deal with deeply religious parents that did everything in their power to stop their daughter from playing R&B. But the rocking sounds of Fats Domino and Little Richard were simply too persuasive. Local guitarist Ashton Savoy took her under his wing, sharing her 1958 debut 45 for the Kry logo ("Baby Baby").

Webster rapidly became an invaluable studio sessioneer for Louisiana producers J.D. Miller in Crowley and Eddie Shuler in Lake Charles. She played on sides by Guitar Junior (Lonnie Brooks), Clarence Garlow, Jimmy Wilson, Lazy Lester, and Phil Phillips (her gently rolling 88s powered his hit "Sea of Love").

The young pianist also waxed some terrific sides of her own for Miller from 1959 to 1961 for his Rocko, Action, and Spot labels (where she introduced a dance called "The Katie Lee"). Webster led her own band, the Uptighters, at the same time she was spending her days in the studio. In 1964, she guested with Otis Redding's band at the Bamboo Club in Lake Charles and so impressed the charismatic Redding that he absconded with her. For the next three years, Webster served as his opening act!

The 1970s were pretty much a lost decade for Katie Webster as she took care of her ailing parents in Oakland, CA. But in 1982 a European tour beckoned, and she journeyed overseas for the first of many such jaunts. The Alligator connection commenced in 1988 with some high-profile help: Bonnie Raitt, Robert Cray, and Kim Wilson all made guest appearances on The Swamp Boogie Queen. The lovably extroverted boogie pianist encored with Two-Fisted Mama! and No Foolin' before suffering the stroke.

-- Bill Dahl, All-Music Guide

ORIGINAL LINER NOTES

KATIE WEBSTER is what she's called, but Katie Webster is more than a Louisiana bayou piano player. She's a mistress of blues, boogie woogie, soul and ballads; a singer with a deeply gospel-influenced style and a songwriter of blues classics full of down-home wisdom.
Her roots are in the gospel music that her preacher father and religious mother insisted that she play while growing up in Houston. But in the '50s, the sounds of blues, R&B and early rock 'n' roll were inescapable. When her parents were away, the young Katie was playing "the Devil's music," pounding out blues and boogies, developing a rock-solid left hand and a romping right

By the time she was a teenager, Katie had won a coveted position as the piano player on almost every important blues and proto-rock record that came out of the studios of Southwest Louisiana. She sparked the records of Clifton Chenier, Slim Harpo, Lightnin' Slim, Phil Phillips (the original "Sea Of Love") and her future labelmate Lonnie Brooks, then known as Guitar Junior.
By the early '60s, Katie was headlining the Bamboo Club in Lake Charles, packing the club with her vast repertoire of everything from the most traditional blues to current R&B hits. It was there that she was spotted by Otis Redding, who insisted that she join his road band the very next day. Otis became one of her dearest friends. It was only because of Katie's advanced pregnancy that she didn't accompany Otis on his final, fatal tour. But Redding's death was such an emotional blow to her that she retired from music and moved to the Bay Area to take care of her ailing parents.

After almost a decade, she was coaxed out of retirement to tour Europe as a soloist, where she became a sensation. She returned to Europe nearly 30 times in the next few years, cutting albums for a number of small labels.
Katie's manager, the equally flamboyant Ice Cube Slim, teamed Katie with Alligator Records, and she came to Chicago for the last three records of her career. For the "Swamp Boogie Queen" sessions she brought the Silent Partners. On "Two Fisted Mama," she teamed with guitarist/arranger/songwriter Vasti Jackson, who became her close friend and bandleader. Together they stormed the blues festival and club circuit, winning Katie a whole new generation of
American fans.

ORIGINAL LINER NOTES

Katie Webster sings the kind of songs more often associated with male blues singers than with women. With a few exceptions (Koko Taylor and Denise LaSalle come tomind), there is an edge to the music she chooses, an edge that a lot of women don't have. Her songs will never be confused with that plaintive wailing of a woman who's been hurt and left by her man. Katie sings, "I need love and I need affection, or I'll find all my good things in the wrong direction."

I saw Katie at the Jazz Fest in New Orleans last year. She not only was playing one of the early shows, before the crowds had started to build, but the night before she had just returned from a month of one-nighters in Europe. Jet lag was her close companion. Yet, when she sat down at the piano, all of that fatigue just melted away before her two-fisted piano and what I call her "No foolin'style of singing. In her own song on this new offering, I'm Bad, Katie sings, "I'm bad and the who world knows I'm bad. And I don't mean like Michael Jackson either."

That Saturday in New Orleans, Katie Webster set the tone for theJazz Fest. Those early birds who caught her performance had somethingto talk about for the rest of the day. Put simply, Katie Webster's bad!

- Ed Bradley