this post is for the "ass blaster" who seems to be taking a page from khchris.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was briefly cited as an important influence on blues in Martin Scorcese's documentary series.
wfmu has a video
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/0..._rosetta_.html
also youtube has several
http://www.youtube.com/results?search=sister_rosetta&search_type=search_v ideos
Billie Holiday & Sarah Vaughan are two big names as jazz vocalists.
As much as I love Patti Smith & Chan Marshall in particular (of the names mentioned so far),
Kim Gordon is of course
the alpha female rock star.
HAIL!