Ann Rabson, Saffire: The Uppity Blues Women Co Founder Dies at 67

Ann Rabson--pianist and vocalist and co founder of the trio Saffire: The Uppity Blues Women, passed away on Wednesday.

The Associated Press reported that Rabson died in Virginia after a battle with cancer at the age of 67. Rabson was a songwriter and a guitarist along with being a stellar blues pianist. During her years performing she recorded eight albums with Saffire and her 4 solo albums with various labels.

In 2009 Saffire ended their run, after 25 years together performing. The AP reported that Rabson, who started playing piano when she was 35, was a native New Yorker who grew up in Ohio and moved to Fredericksburg in 1971.

"Blues speaks to me directly," she said the AP reported. "It wasn't a choice. I was drawn to it naturally, sort of like a sheepdog with sheep."

The rest of Saffire included Gaye Adegbalola and Andra Faye McIntosh.

"The group's style harked back to the 1920s and the music of Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Sippie Wallace, but Saffire's music adopted a wry, post-feminist point of view. One of Saffire's signature wink-and-a-nod tunes was "The Middle Aged Blues Boogie," which celebrates the sexual vitality of older women:"I'll forget about my arthritis / My backache, my lumbago / At the horizontal disco," reported The Washington Post.

In 1971 Rabson came to Fredericksburg and worked as a computer programmer while performing as a singer and guitarists in clubs under the name Ann Stewart. Adegbalola was a high school science teacher and in 1984 the two launched Saffire and then added Earlene Lewis who had taken classes from Rabson.

Lewis left in 1992 and was replaced by McIntosh. "It was all by accident, not intending to be all around the same age, all the same gender, any of that stuff, or different ethnic backgrounds," Ms. Rabson said to the Orlando Sentinel in 1992. "It was who happened to be where, when. And it worked out real well."

"We are absolutely very raunchy people," Ms. Rabson added to The Washington Post in 1994. Rabson taught herself guitar, performed in Chicago and married and divorced twice before she had a daughter and arrived in Fredericksburg.

Her survivors include her husband of 31 years, George Newman and a daughter, Liz Shnore as well as her father, Gustav Rabson, brother Steve Rabson and half-sister, Mimi Rabson and her granddaughter.