Irene Reid for Jazz Awards concert

"YOU SAY you're going fishin', but I know that you ain't, 'cause I never saw a fish with no lipstick, powder and paint".

These are some of the interpretations of relationships, indiscretions and romance running amok which usually evoke peals of raucous laughter from Irene Reid's audience during some of her performances.

Ms. Reid is set to come to Jamaica for the Ocho Rios Jazz Festival and is expected to perform with the Charles Earland Band on Saturday, June 17 on Concert and Awards Night at the Renaissance Jamaica Grande Hotel, in Ocho Rios.

"Ms. Reid is the 'diva of dirty blues'", said one writer from the New York Amsterdam News, who described her lyrics as suggestive and bordering on raunchy, but never offensive. "Her lyrics are a lesson of life...translates private thoughts and powder-room talk into performance truth," he continued.

Born in Savannah, Georgia, Irene began singing in the Baptist Church and when she was old enough to attend school, she sang in the choruses.

Her reputation preceded her at junior high school and she earned lead soprano roles in the operettas. She attempted composition during her middle childhood years and developed the proficiency to write the class songs for her graduating class in high school.

Ms. Reid's achievements in music were encouraged by her community and her church; her high school music director persuaded her to devote more time to music and less to basketball.

Well-trained in the southern blues tradition, Irene did her first performance on the Apollo Amateur Hour in the '40s and won first prize for five consecutive weeks.

"Dinah Washington was working there at the time", she said, "and someone told her that a girl who sounded just like her was performing one evening. She stayed to listen. When I finished, she told me that I was good, but that I didn't sound like her," Ms. Reid said.

She felt encouraged by Dinah Washington's statement, as she felt strongly that it was important for individuals to personalise their performance and compositions.

Her first of eight albums, It's Only The Beginning, was distributed by MGM in the 1950s.

During that time Ms. Reid took a break to get married and have children, but returned to performing in the '60s, touring Switzerland, Holland, Sweden and Germany with the Count Basie Band.

According to her, the blues is just like telling a story about everyday life and she has a special knack of combining and intertwining different songs which are thematically related.

"For instance", she said, "I may start with the song:

"Last night I took my man to his wife's front door.

But she was a 45-packing mama and Lord knows

I ain't go'n do that no more"

"I then break into songs like Stormy Monday, For You My Love, and Trouble in Mind. It creates a certain mood, keeps the excitement going and there is a relationship between the songs," she said.