While there are a number of women guitarists that I respect, there are really only three that I could call influences: Elizabeth Cotten, Sister Rosetta Tharp, and birthday girl Susan Tedeschi. Tedeschi and her husband, Derek Trucks, are the only husband and wife duo that are each on my list of influences.
How about Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo?
Neil Giraldo is an influence, but Benatar - a coloratura soprano - well, obviously isn't. My point was that Trucks and Tedeschi are the only husband and wife duo that are EACH influences on my guitar playing.
I was kidding. I've always been a Benatar fan but I wouldn't say she was influential.
I preferred Benatar when she was doing real rock and roll. I rate her the third-greatest female rock singer ever, behind Ann Wilson and Janis Joplin. She could have been the best if she'd ever decided to, but rock and roll wasn't her first love. Like so many high school girls who are both attractive and genuinely talented, she was more into musical theater. She wanted to be Liza Minelli, not Janis Joplin.
Legends have grown up that she trained with the Metropolitan Opera and attended Juilliard. Neither was true. She attended a "summer camp" sponsored by the Met while she was in high school, nothing more. But with that voice she likely could have gotten into Juilliard, if she'd tried.
Neil Giraldo is an absolutely killer guitar player with killer tone, and he's among the smartest and most decent guys the music biz has ever seen. He is a total class act.
