American Blues legend Alice Stuart is returning to the Island this week to play at the Bermuda Folk Club, a year after she attracted one of the club’s largest audiences.Ms Stuart, who briefly played in Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention band in the 1960s, is the special guest performer at this Saturday’s event.The singer-songwriter was a pioneering figure in the 1960s and early 1970s. Playing acoustic and electric guitar she was a forerunner to the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Joan Jett, and Chrissie Hynde.Speaking from her West Coast home, she said she has happy memories of last year’s gig and was looking forward to playing at the folk club once more.“It had to be one of the most appreciative crowds. It was wonderful. The place was packed and I was thrilled because I’d never been there before. I made some great friends and I’ve so been looking forward to coming back,” said Ms Stuart.“There is so much to love in Bermuda, even in these hard times.”The audience at the folk club, which is held at Spanish Point Boat Club, will be treated to a variety of acoustic songs from her extensive career, which stretches back to 1961 when she first started playing at a folk club in Seattle.On Saturday she hopes a few local musicians, such as Michael Cacy and Neil Burnie, will sit in with her to beef up a few of the songs.Ms Stuart is planning to stay on the Island for two weeks before travelling to Chicago where she will speak to students at Northwestern University about her breakthrough appearance at the 1964 Berkeley Folk Festival in California, and two return slots at the 1966 and 1970 festivals.When she went on stage at the festival in 1964 the folk music revival in the US had been gathering steam for only three years.“It was when everyone discovered how cool folk music was again and people got discovered,” she said.“I was from a small town in Washington state. I grew up teaching myself these folk songs and then when I was 18 I graduated from piano and drums to guitar and I started singing folk music in a club in Seattle.”Three years later she was invited to play at the Berkeley Folk Festival.“That was amazing. It was just such a prestigious thing to do.”Northwestern University has bought the archives of the folk festival to use in classes on archival work. After identifying Ms Stuart in some of the old footage, she was asked if she would come and talk about the events. She will also hold a few workshops and play a concert while in Chicago.Ms Stuart moved from acoustic guitar to electric around 1968, a few years after folk icon Bob Dylan had stirred up controversy by similarly switching to electric guitar.It was around this time she was briefly involved with Frank Zappa and his band Mothers of Invention.“That was my first foray into the electric world as far as trying to play electric guitar. He did not want me to play electric, he wanted me to play acoustic because he really liked my delta style and he wanted to play around what I was playing in a sort of bizarre Frank Zappa fashion and it wasn’t really working for me.“It was not the direction I wanted to go. We played some gigs and I believe I was the only girl who was in his group, and definitely the first girl in his band.”Her debut album ‘All the Good Times’, realised in 1964, was filled with folk songs. In 1970 she released her second album ‘Fulltime Woman’, which combined acoustic and electric tracks.She played electric Stratocaster guitar at the front of an otherwise all-male band, paving the way for future stars such as Bonnie Raitt and Chrissie Hynde. Blues historian Dick Waterman noted: “There would be no Bonnie Raitt without Alice Stuart.”However, at the time, Ms Stuart did not perceive herself as a trailblazer.“It’s not until the last 10 years that I’ve understood that. I just had a passion to do what I was doing and went for it. I knew there weren’t a lot of women out there doing it but it really didn’t matter to me. It wasn’t like a big deal ‘This is going to be different because I’m doing it’,” she explained.Among her fondest memories are the time she played and hung out with Mississippi John Hurt in 1964, appeared in the Dick Cavett TV show, and stayed with Sonny Terry while gigging on the East Coast.Touring with Van Morrison was another career highlight. “That was a great experience. It was many weeks on the road and staying in great places, playing great venues like the Rainbow Theatre in London.”Ms Stuart was a good friend of the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia. She worked with him in the 1970s when he had the Jerry Garcia Band.“That was fun. Back then when I could only afford one guitar at a time, someone stole my Stratocaster guitar from my car. Jerry actually gave me a Strat’ that he didn’t play anymore. It turned out it was a ‘56 Strat’ and believe it or not I sold it for something else. If I had it now I’d probably be living in a bigger house. He was a great friend, a great guy. I liked him a lot.”She left the music scene in the late 1970s to raise her children and did not return until the mid-1990s.“I missed the music. My marriage fell apart. I thought I can do this or this and thought why not do something that I really love doing.“I went back to music on acoustic side again and doing my old songs and also some of the old folk songs. So now I do both the electric thing with my band and the acoustic stuff.”Alice Stuart will be playing acoustically at the Bermuda Folk Club, in the Spanish Point Boat Club, this Saturday. Doors open at 7.30pm with music from 8pm. Admission is $12.