Happy Birthday to the American singer Lou Ann Barton, who is turning 71 today. She first was noticed in the late 1970’s in the band Triple Threat Revue, which also included a young guitarist named Stevie Ray Vaughn. As the band evolved into Double Trouble, she left to pursue a solo career.
Lou Ann Barton’s first album Old Enough (1982) was co-produced by veteran producer Jerry Wexler and Glenn Frey of the Eagles. It is an excellent album of solid Texan blues-rock, which was well received by the critics. However, the album failed to sell. After one more futile attempt to hit the commercial market, she returned to her blues-rock roots, and has stayed there ever since.
Since the late 1980’s Lou Ann Barton has released a few records, among them two posthumously released albums in collaboration with Stevie Ray Vaughn. She has also on several occasions collaborated with Stevie Ray’s big brother Jimmy Vaughn, who is also an excellent guitarist. And there’s been gigging more or less regularly, mostly on the Texas blues scene, but also in the the rest of the US and Europe.
I’ll post the title track from the Old Enough album here. It’s a very good album, and if you like this song, I recommend you check out the album. So here’s one for a lady who’s paid her dues, Happy Birthday Lou Ann Barton 
Lou Ann Barton - Old Enough
Now this comes with an anecdote, told to me by a late friend of mine in the 1990’s. He knew the promoter of a blues festival. When Lou Ann Barton was appearing there, among the things she had on her rider was one bottle of Jack Daniels. Early on the day of her concert, the promoter wanted to discuss some details in the contract, and was invited to her hotel room. When he entered, he noticed that she had already finished three quartes of the Jack Daniels bottle, and it was only around noon. Naturally he got worried about the gig in the evening.
Luckily the story has a happy ending, the gig in the evening went perfectly fine. And the moral of the story? Lou Ann Barton is a professional 
