Joe Weaver, Alberta Adams, Johnny Bassett

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One of Motown’s musical treasures, blueswoman Alberta Adams has sung with “everybody who's anybody.” Born in the early 1920s in Indianapolis, Roberta Louise Osborne was raised by relatives in Detroit. She got her start in show business in 1940 as “Tap Dancer Deluxe” in a club on Hastings Street located in “Paradise Valley,” Detroit’s famed black entertainment quarter. When the featured vocalists fell ill, Alberta stepped in to sing the only two songs she knew, "Hay Ba Ba Rebop" and "I'll Be So Glad When My Man Comes Home," and she has been performing ever since. Alberta has sung with all the great jazz, R&B, and blues bands in Detroit and such individual artists as T-Bone Walker, Roy Eldridge, Duke Ellington, Louis Jordan, Big Joe Turner, LaVern Baker, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, and Dizzy Gillespie. From her early recordings with the famous jazz labels Chess and Savoy to her more recent albums, “Born With The Blues” and "Blues Across America: The Detroit Scene" Alberta personifies the old blues adage as an artist “born with the blues” who has "paid her dues." A consummate entertainer with a powerful voice and engaging performance style, Adams is considered one the great divas of the blues world.

At the 2003 Great Lakes Folk Festival, Alberta Adams is backed by veteran musicians RJ Spangler (drums), Paul Carey (guitar), Ben Luttermoser (bass), Keith Kaminski (saxophone), and Martin Simmons (piano).

During the 2003 Folk Festival, look to see Alberta Adams performing as part of the Detroit Blues Revue with Johnnie Bassett and Joe Weaver.

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