The blues is about a feeling, it is often said. It's also about a way of looking at the world steeped in sorrow yet overflowing with life. Jackson traces the lives and influence of female blues singers, black and white, and celebrates the power of their music, which has been overlooked, she says. The women she limns, including pioneers Mamie Desdoumes, Ma Rainey, and Bessie Smith, jazz singers Billie Holiday and Etta James, and eventually pop singers Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin, and Janis Joplin, refused to follow the rules about how women should behave in society. The blues allowed women to express emotions and points of view to general American culture when women had little say outside the home, and women's blues constitute a commentary about the often-complicated lives of women in an era of great social change. In conclusion, Jackson insists that the legacy of the blues lives on in contemporary performers' music and attitude toward life. Hence, she finds a blues sensibility--a struggle for emotional freedom--even in Joni Mitchell.