Sirah Storm and The Blue Tail Twisters

Sirah Storm has been performing since the age of three. Born into a musically talented family in Grand Rapids, Michigan, she and her parents and four siblings sang in the choir at the Baptist church. “We were like the Von Trapps,” she says. Trained in classical piano, Sirah also began writing songs at a very young age and has never quit, because it is simply her nature to write about life. Although both parents are multi-talented, it was her father who influenced her most. “He played boogie-woogie on the piano and the old man could really sing.” Sirah took the stage for her first solo at seven, and by 14 she was entertaining at mini concerts and outdoor festivals with a three-person, all-female band.

Being raised in the Great Lakes area meant being near Detroit where a lot was happening on the R & B scene. It was in the late sixties, when she was a junior high student that she was exposed to “a lot of Blues all at once.” When an older sister said she was going to a party, she told Sirah not to tell their parents. But Sirah, independent and headstrong, replied, “If you don’t take me with you, I’ll tell mom and dad.” So, the sister was forced to comply. When they reached the party, an old brownstone with a huge basement, Sirah was told to stay put under the stairway and not come out. Sirah said she’d do it only if she could get a whisky and Coke. While drinking and peering out from her limited point of view, she saw “some big guy walk in carrying a beautiful red guitar and then he started playing.” It was some of the most amazing music she had ever heard. She fell in love.

“It’s why I sing the Blues,” she explains. “It was like hitting me up with a syringe.” She went home and started singing like him, and found out later that the man with the red guitar was B. B. King. “I was not your typical Blues performer. Here I was this white girl from a middle class family. But listening to B. B. King felt somehow like being home again. It was a revolution . . . listening to the music and the songs. I didn’t know it existed, that that life existed. Blues is about telling life. It’s a whole process. It makes people laugh and cry.”

Eventually, in the early seventies, Sirah landed in California at the age of 17 and started her own Blues band called “Elbow.” They played for about seven years and appeared with various groups like Taj Mahal, Savoy Brown, ELO and Bobby “Blue” Bland. She was too young to play in bars, but that didn’t stop her. “The first time I walked into a bar,” she says, “the man working there asked me how old I was. I looked at him and said, ‘How old do you think I am?’ and he served me a pitcher of beer.” A whole new world opened up. She and her band traveled up and down the California coast, roaming around with the likes of Johnny Heartsman, Elvin Bishop, and “Cold Blood” and “having a lot of fun.”

The award-winning Johnny Heartsman, who died in December of 1996, greatly influenced Sirah’s musical career. He could do anything—vocals, keyboards, guitar, bass, and even the flute, an unlikely instrument in the Blues world. According to Sirah, he is the person responsible for first introducing the flute to the Blues.

“Johnny and I were pretty close friends,” she says. “He was good for me. He pushed me to a new place.” On stage one night, Heartsman announced that they would perform Gladys Knight’s “Neither One of Us, a move Sirah wasn’t too happy about. But Heartsman looked at her and said, “You’re gonna do it.” He believed in her. He started playing and she started singing and then, she recalls, “He went off on a tangent. Then I came in and went over the top of him.” The result was a standing ovation. Other people who have influenced Sirah include Billy Holiday, KoKo Taylor, Albert Collins, Albert King, and classic R&B.

After a record deal fell through in California, frustrated and feeling ripped off, Sirah eventually moved to Idaho at the advice of her grandfather who logged up north. That was in 1995. Currently, she lives in Mountain Home, Idaho, and performs with the Blue Tail Twisters, appearing locally and across the country at events and music festivals with the Hollywood Texas Blues Band. The Blue Tail Twisters include bass player Jim Cummings from Wyoming; drummer Jeff Norvell from California; guitarist Chris Payne from Boise; and on occasion, guitarist Jim Hansen from Portland. A new CD is in the making and will include original works.