Amelia ("Amy") van Singel (October 11, 1949 – September 19, 2016) was an American blues journalist and radio host. She co-founded ''

Living Blues ''Living Blues: The Magazine of the African American Blues Tradition'' is a bi-monthly magazine focused on blues music, and America's oldest blues periodical. The magazine was founded as a quarterly in Chicago in 1970 by Jim O'Neal and Amy van ...

'' magazine with her then husband,

Jim O'Neal Jim O'Neal (born November 25, 1948, Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States) is an American blues expert, writer, record producer, and record company executive. He co-founded America's first blues magazine, ''Living Blues'', in Chicago in 1970, and w ...

, and was posthumously inducted to the

Blues Hall of Fame The Blues Hall of Fame is a music museum located at 421 S. Main Street in Memphis, Tennessee. Initially, the "Blues Hall of Fame" was not a physical building, but a listing of people who have significantly contributed to blues music. Started in 1 ...

in 2017.

Life and career

Amy van Singel was born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, the daughter of a bank executive, and grew up in the suburb of

Hinsdale, Illinois Hinsdale is a village in Cook and DuPage counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. Hinsdale is a western suburb of Chicago. The population was 17,395 at the 2020 census, most of whom lived in DuPage County. The town's ZIP code is 60521. The town ...

. After hearing records by

British R&B British rhythm and blues (or R&B) was a musical movement that developed in the United Kingdom between the late 1950s and the early 1960s, and reached a peak in the mid-1960s. It overlapped with, but was distinct from, the broader British beat ...

bands such as

the Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the g ...

in her teens, she developed a love of blues music and occasionally worked at

Bob Koester Robert Gregg Koester (October 30, 1932 – May 12, 2021) was an American record producer and businessman who was the founder and owner of Delmark Records, a jazz and blues independent record label. He also operated the Jazz Record Mart in Chi ...

's Jazz Record Mart. She attended Hinsdale Township High School, and enrolled at

Endicott College Endicott College is a private college in Beverly, Massachusetts. History Endicott College was founded as Endicott Junior College in 1939 by Eleanor Tupper and her husband, George O. Bierkoe. Originally a two-year women’s college, its miss ...

in Beverly, Massachusetts in 1967, transferring to

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

in 1968. There, she met fellow blues fan Jim O'Neal, and began broadcasting on

WNUR WNUR-FM (89.3 FM) is a 7,200–watt radio station based in Evanston, Illinois that broadcasts to Chicago and its northern suburbs. It is the student radio station of Northwestern University. History WNUR first began broadcasting on May 8, ...

, where she became known as "Atomic Mama". She and O'Neal married in 1970. They started interviewing local

Chicago blues Chicago blues is a form of blues music developed in Chicago, Illinois. It is based on earlier blues idioms, such as Delta blues, but performed in an urban style. It developed alongside the Great Migration of the first half of the twentieth cent ...

musicians, and, with others, founded ''Living Blues'' the same year. Graydon Megan, "Amy van Singel, blues aficionado, radio host, dies at 66", ''Chicago Tribune'', October 19, 2016
/ref> O'Neal said: "We embarked on a mission to bring recognition to the blues originators and the living African American blues tradition, first with some interviews we sent to '' Blues Unlimited''.... I didn’t have to hide my record-buying habit from my wife. We shared in that pursuit and just about everything else, loving the blues and our life together. We decided not to have children, but poured our energy into birthing and parenting ''Living Blues''." "Amy van Singel", ''Living Blues''
/ref> She and O'Neal published the magazine from their home in Chicago until 1983, when production moved to

Oxford, Mississippi Oxford is a city and college town in the U.S. state of Mississippi. Oxford lies 75 miles (121 km) south-southeast of Memphis, Tennessee, and is the county seat of Lafayette County. Founded in 1837, it was named after the British city of Ox ...

. She also had a radio show on WXFM in the early 1970s. The couple remained in Chicago until 1986; they divorced the following year. Van Singel moved to Oxford, and then to

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

, where she also had a radio show. Later, she moved to Anchorage, Alaska, where she again had her own radio show, for ten years. She remarried and moved to

Ellsworth, Maine Ellsworth is a city in and the county seat of Hancock County, Maine, United States. The 2020 Census determined it had a population of 8,399. Named after United States Founding Father Oliver Ellsworth, it contains historic buildings a ...

, in 2010. She died in her home there in 2016, aged 66. She was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2017. Amy van Singel, ''Blues Hall of Fame''
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Singel, Amy van 1949 births 2016 deaths American radio DJs American music journalists American women journalists American women radio presenters 21st-century American women