Lady Of The Blues

Miss Freddye, a full time nurse, also known as, Lady Of The Blues, got her inspiration as a young girl singing in church and through her mother’s love of Blues music. “When I was a kind there were a couple of us in the neighborhood that would get together and sing whatever we liked at the time,” Miss Freddye told us. She loved singing so much that, “One Christmas my mom got me a plastic pink microphone,” she laughed.

When she was 15, Miss Freddye joined a local church choir, but recalled that it didn’t go so well. “My stage fright went through the roof after that,” she said. As the years went by though, she kept at it, singing in choir along the way. “I really didn’t get into this until 1996 when I auditioned for my first band,” she recalled.

She joined the Blues Music Works band under the direction Of “Big” Al Leavitt in 1996, and hasn’t quit since. She now fronts two bands, Miss Freddye’s Blues Band (electric blues) and Miss Freddye’s Homecookin’ Band, (acoustic blues, classic rock, gospel.) Her influences include Koko Taylor, Etta James, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughn, Big Mama Thornton, and Bessie Smith.

Clearly those days singing in the choir and warming up with her plastic microphone have paid off. In 2008 she won West Virginia Blues Society for Best Blues, and in 2012 the Blues Society Of Western PA Best Duo/Solo Act. In 2014, Miss Freddye was awarded the Star Award from the Pittsburgh VA Medical Center for her work with veterans, and was awarded the 2015 Freedom From Silence Award from the Center For Victims.

The Iron City Rocks Awards for Best Blues Band acknowledged Miss Freddye and her band with it’s top honor in 2016, 2017, and 2019. Her self-released CD, Lady Of The Blues, won for Best Album in 2017.

Her latest single, the gospel classic, “Wade In The Water,” is out now, from her forthcoming gospel album, scheduled for release later this year.

Visit Miss Freddye’s page here! Listen to the Full Interview here!