“196: My Dress Still Fits!”

Last night, while I drove the P.T. Cruiser through the cold ice-over landscape to pick up two dinner orders from Avanti's Italian Restaurant, I warmed myself up with a little Candye Kane in the CD player. It could've been one of several discs in our collection, but this night it was Swango, which opens with one of the blues diva's statements of purpose "200 Lbs. Of Fun." A jump blues number done with big band, the song finds our heroine proudly asserting that big is beautiful:

"I've got enough for everyone: 200 pounds of fun."
Most of the bisexual BBW's albums contain at least one size acceptance anthem (my personal fave is Diva La Grande's opener "You Need a Great Big Woman") attesting to the sexual glories of fat womanhood. And looking at the bodacious Miz Kane, it's hard to argue with her. Fat and proud – and a damn fine cabaret blues singer, too – her major recorded output currently is at five albums, with a sixth (White Trash Girl) promised for Spring. I'd particularly recommend her debut Home Cooking and Swango (in La Grande, her backing band isn't always equal to her singing). But all of her releases are worth a listen if you at all share a hankerin' for the sexier side of da blues. . .