Anna Rizzo and the A-Train

Anna Rizzo should have been a superstar. Although she is still out there doing it the hard way (most recently on the road with the reformed Kingfish and with her own project), she had a good run in the early and mid-1970s, but fame eluded her outside her home-base of San Francisco.

Rizzo formed the Bay Area band Grootna in 1971, and landed a deal with Columbia Records based largely on an affiliation with Jefferson Airplane's Marty Balin, who produced and sang on the record. Grootna split up in 1972, and Rizzo formed A-Train. While gigging around the Bay Area with A-Train, Rizzo found time to sing on stage with a number of notable artists: Hot Tuna, Mike Bloomfield, Jelly Roll Troy, Dino Valenti, Rick Danko, Bob Weir, and Jesse Colin Young.

When rumors began circulating that famed Atlantic Records/Aretha Franklin producer Jerry Wexler was planning on signing Rizzo but not her band, the A-Train dissolved. In the end, she never released a disc on Atlantic. Rizzo has continued to perform in the Bay Area, and in the late-1990s became a member of the re-formed Kingfish.