AllMusic Artist Biography by Richard Skelly

What sets Joanna Connor … Read Full Bio ↴AllMusic Artist Biography by Richard Skelly

What sets Joanna Connor apart from the rest of the pack of guitar-playing female blues singers is her skill on the instrument. Even though Connor has become an accomplished singer over time, her first love was guitar playing, and it shows in her live shows and on her recordings.

Brooklyn-born, Massachusetts-raised Joanna Connor was drawn to the Chicago blues scene like a bee to a half-full soda can. Connor, a fiery guitarist raised in the 1970s -- when rock & roll was all over the mass media -- just wanted to play blues. She was born August 31, 1962, in Brooklyn, N.Y., and raised by her mother in Worcester, MA. She benefitted from her mother's huge collection of blues and jazz recordings, and a young Connor was taken to see people like Taj Mahal, Bonnie Raitt, Ry Cooder and Buddy Guy in concert.

Connor got her first guitar at age seven. When she was 16, she began singing in Worcester-area bands, and when she was 22, she moved to Chicago. Soon after her arrival in 1984, she began sitting in with Chicago regulars like James Cotton, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy and A.C. Reed. She hooked up with Johnny Littlejohn's group for a short time before being asked by Dion Payton to join his 43rd Street Blues Band. She performed with Payton at the 1987 Chicago Blues Festival. Later that year, she was ready to put her own band together.

Her 1989 debut for the Blind Pig label, Believe It!, got her out of Chicago clubs and into clubs and festivals around the U.S., Canada and Europe. Her other albums include 1992's Fight for Blind Pig (the title track a Luther Allison tune), Living on the Road (1993) and Rock and Roll Gypsy (1995), the latter two for the Ruf Records label. Slidetime on Blind Pig followed in 1998 and Nothing But the Blues, a live recording of a 1999 show in Germany, appeared on the German Inakustik label in 2001. Connor left Blind Pig and signed to small indie label M.C. in 2002. Her first release for her new label, The Joanna Connor Band, finds Connor expanding her sound a bit in an attempt to reach a more mainstream audience.

Connor has blossomed into a gifted blues songwriter. Her songwriting talents, strongly influenced by greats like Luther Allison, will insure that she stays in the blues spotlight for years to come.

Source: AllMusic - Joanna Connor

Slipping Away
Joanna Connor Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

I wish you could see your face right now
'Cause you're grinning like a fool
And we're sitting on your kitchen floor
On a Tuesday afternoon
It doesn't matter when we get back
To doing what we doing
'Cause right now could last forever
Just as long as I'im with you

You're just a daydream away
I wouldn't know what to say if I had you
And I'll keep you a daydream away
Just watch from a safe place
So I never have to lose
We would go out on the weekend
To escape our busy lives
And we'd laugh at all the douche-bag guys
Chasing down their desperate wives
I would drink a little too much
You'd offer me a ride
And I would offer you a t-shirt
And you would stay another night
But you're just a daydream away
I wouldn't know what to say if I had you
And I'll keep you a daydream away
Just watch from a safe place
So I never have to lose
We never stood a chance out there
Shooting love in real-time
So we'll take it over ice tonight
With a little salt
And a little lime
But you're just a daydream away
I wouldn't know what to say if I had you
And I'll keep you a daydream away

Just watch from a safe place
So I never have to lose

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of "Slipping Away" by Joanna Connor explore the feelings of a couple who are enjoying a moment of happiness together. They are sitting on the kitchen floor on a Tuesday afternoon and are lost in each other's company. They are so engrossed in the present moment that they don't even care about the future. The singer wishes that this moment could last forever as long as she is with her partner.

The lyrics then move on to the weekend where the couple goes out to escape their busy lives. They laugh at the "douchebag guys chasing down their desperate wives" and enjoy each other's company. The singer drinks a little too much, and her partner offers to give her a ride. She offers him a t-shirt, and he stays another night. The singer expresses her desire that her partner stays a daydream away so that she never has to lose him.

The lyrics of "Slipping Away" are a tribute to the joys of being with the one you love. The singer dreams of living in the moment forever and is afraid of losing her partner. It is a beautiful song that captures the essence of love and the desire to hold on to the present.

Line by Line Meaning

I wish you could see your face right now
I am happy to see you happy

'Cause you're grinning like a fool
You are smiling foolishly

And we're sitting on your kitchen floor
We are sitting together on the kitchen floor

On a Tuesday afternoon
It's a Tuesday afternoon

It doesn't matter when we get back
We don't care when we return

To doing what we doing
To what we were doing earlier

'Cause right now could last forever
The current moment could last forever

Just as long as I'm with you
As long as I am with you

You're just a daydream away
You feel like a dream

I wouldn't know what to say if I had you
I don't know what to do if we were together

And I'll keep you a daydream away
I'll keep you at a distance like a dream