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Biography
Infobox musical artist| name = Memphis Minnie| image = Memphis Minnie Portrait Walls MS.jpg| caption = Portrait (ca. 1930) on Minnie's gravemarker| image_size =| background = solo_singer| birth_name = Lizzie Douglas| alias =| birth_date = birth date|1897|6|3|mf=y| birth_place = Algiers, Louisiana|Algiers , Louisiana , United States | death_date = death date and age|1973|8|6|1897|6|3| death_place = Memphis, Tennessee|Memphis , Tennessee , United States| instrument = Guitar , electric guitar, bass guitar|bass , banjo , drum s| genre = Blues | occupation = Guitarist , Singer|vocalist , songwriter | years_active = 1920s–1950s| label = Okeh Records|Okeh , Columbia Records|Columbia , Vocalion Records|Vocalion , Decca Records|Decca , Bluebird Records|Bluebird , Checker Records|Checker , J.O.B. Records|JOB | associated_acts =| website =| notable_instruments = Memphis Minnie (June 3, 1897 & ndash; August 6, 1973) was an American blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter . She was the only female blues artist considered a match to male contemporaries as both a singer and an instrumentalist.cite book | first= Tony | last= Russell | year= 1997 | title= The Blues - From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray | edition= | publisher=Carlton Books Limited | location= Dubai | pages= 103–104 | isbn= 1-85868-255-X
Career
Born Lizzie Douglas in Algiers, Louisiana , Minnie was one of the most influential and pioneering female blues musicians and guitarists of all time. She recorded for forty years, almost unheard of for any woman in show business at the time and unique among female blues artists. A flamboyant character who wore bracelets made of United States dollar coin|silver dollars , she was a very popular blues recording artist from the early Great Depression|Depression years through World War II . One of the first generation of blues artists to take up the electric guitar , in 1942, she combined her Louisiana-country roots with Memphis blues to produce her own unique country-blues sound; along with Big Bill Broonzy and Tampa Red , she took country blues into electric urban blues, paving the way for Muddy Waters , Bo Diddley , Little Walter , and Jimmy Rogers to travel from the small towns of the south to the big cities of the north.
According to some reports she was married three times, each time to an accomplished blues guitarist: Kansas Joe McCoy later of the Harlem Hamfats , possibly Casey Bill Weldon (though there is little if any evidence for this), and Ernest Lawlers|Ernest "Little Son Joe" Lawlers .cite web |url=Allmusic|class=artist|id=p456|pure_url=yes|title=Memphis Minnie |publisher=allmusic |accessdate=July 31, 2007 Paul and Beth Garon's 1992 biography on Memphis Minnie, ''Woman With Guitar: Memphis Minnie's Blues , makes no mention of a marriage to Weldon, but only says that she recorded two sides with him, in November 1935, for Bluebird Records . It does describe the relationships and marriages to McCoy and Lawlers.Garon, Paul, and Beth Garon, (1992). Woman With Guitar: Memphis Minnie's Blues . New York, New York: Da Capo Press. - pp.24,39,& 45. - ISBN 0306804603
After learning to play guitar and banjo as a child, she ran away from home at the age of thirteen. She travelled to Memphis, Tennessee , playing guitar in nightclubs and on the street as Lizzie "Kid" Douglas. The next year, she joined the Ringling Brothers circus. Her marriage and recording début came in 1929, to and with Kansas Joe McCoy, when a Columbia Records talent scout heard them playing in a Beale Street barbershop in their distinctive 'Memphis style,' and their song "Bumble Bee" became a hit.Garon, - p.25. In the 1930s she moved to Chicago, Illinois with McCoy. She and McCoy broke up in 1935, and by 1939 she was with Little Son Joe Lawlers. In the 1940s she formed a touring vaudeville company. Some of her most potent and enduring work was made in the early 1940s, such as "Nothing in Rambling," "In My Girlish Days," "Looking The World Over" and "Me and My Chauffeur Blues".
Later in the 1940s Minnie lived in Indianapolis , Indiana and Detroit , Michigan, returning to Chicago in the early 1950s. From the 1950s on, however, public interest in her music declined, and in 1957 she and Lawlers returned to Memphis, Tennessee|Memphis . Lawlers died in 1961.cite web |url= http://www.cr.nps.gov/delta/blues/people/memphis_minnie.htm |title=Memphis Minnie |publisher=cr.nps.gov |accessdate=2006-10-23
Death
After her health began to fail in the mid 1950s, Minnie returned to Memphis and retired from performing and recording. She spent her twilight years in a nursing home in Memphis, Tennessee|Memphis where she died of a stroke in 1973.Santelli, Robert. The Big Book of Blues , Penguin Books, page 335, (2001) - ISBN 0141001453 She is buried at the New Hope Baptist Church Cemetery in Walls, Mississippi|Walls , DeSoto County, Mississippi . A headstone paid for by Bonnie Raitt was erected by the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund on 13 October 1996 with 35 family members in attendance including her sister, numerous nieces (including Laverne Baker ) and nephews. The ceremony was taped for broadcast by the BBC .
Her headstone is marked:
Lizzie "Kid" Douglas Lawlers aka Memphis Minnie
The inscription on the back of her gravestone reads:
"''The hundreds of sides Minnie recorded are the perfect material to teach us about the blues. For the blues are at once general, and particular, speaking for millions, but in a highly singular, individual voice. Listening to Minnie's songs we hear her fantasies, her dreams, her desires, but we will hear them as if they were our own. " http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi? page=gr& GRid=14639079 Find a Grave: Memphis Minnie
Selective discography
Year
Title
Genre
Label
Songs
1988
I Ain't No Bad Gal
Blues
Portrait
"You Need A Friend", "Can't Afford To Lose My Man", "Me and My Chauffeur Blues", "Looking The World Over", and more
1997
Me & My Chauffeur 1935–1946 with Little Son Joe
Blues
Epm Musique
"Hoodoo Lady", "Hot Stuff", "My And My Chauffeur Blues", "My Baby Don't Want Me No More", and more
2000
''Pickin' the Blues with Kansas Joe McCoy
Blues
Culture Press
"Bumble Bee", " When The Levee Breaks ", "Joe Louis Strut", "Crazy Cryin' Blues", "Picking The Blues", "Ma Rainey", and more
Legacy
Minnie lived to see her reputation revived in the 1960s as part of the general revival of interest in the blues. In 1980, she was inducted into the Blues Foundation 's Blues Hall of Fame|Hall of Fame .cite web |url= http://www.blues.org/halloffame/inductees.php4? YearId=25 |title=1980 Hall of Fame Inductees |publisher=The Blues Foundation |accessdate=2006-10-23
Songs
" When the Levee Breaks ", a 1929 Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy song,Marvin, Elizabeth West. Concert Music, Rock, and Jazz Since 1945: Essays and Analytical Studies , Boydell & Brewer, page 330, (1995) - ISBN 1580460968 was later covered (with slightly altered lyrics and a different melody) by Led Zeppelin and released in 1971 on their Led Zeppelin IV|fourth album . The band " A Perfect Circle " remixed the song for their covers album "eMotive" in 2004.
"When the Levee Breaks" was played in the film Ghost World , and Minnie was mentioned several times throughout the film.
Other songs by Memphis Minnie include: "Bumble Bee Blues", "Hoodoo Lady", "I'm Gonna Bake My Biscuit" and "I Want Something For You".
References
Commons categoryReflist
External links
http://www.archive.org/download/Kansas_Joe_Memphis_Minnie-When_Levee_Breaks/Kansas_Joe_and_Memphis_Minnie-When_the_Levee_Breaks.mp3 Listen to "When the Levee Breaks" at the "Internet Archive" (archive.org)
http://www.cr.nps.gov/delta/blues/people/memphis_minnie.htm Delta Blues Bio and Samples of "Bumble Bee Blues" and "Soo Cow Soo"
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi? page=gr& GRid=14639079 Find A Grave Memorial
http://mtzionmemorialfund.org/site/memorials/memphis-minnie/ Mount Zion memorial Fund
Persondata | NAME = Douglas, Lizzie | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = Minnie, Memphis | SHORT DESCRIPTION = United States|American blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter | DATE OF BIRTH = June 3, 1897 | PLACE OF BIRTH = Algiers, Louisiana , United States | DATE OF DEATH = August 6, 1973 | PLACE OF DEATH = Memphis, Tennessee , United States DEFAULTSORT:Minnie, Memphis Category:1897 births Category:1973 deaths Category:Acoustic blues musicians Category:American blues guitarists Category:Memphis blues musicians Category:American blues singers Category:American buskers Category:American female singers Category:American female guitarists Category:Vaudeville performers Category:Blues Hall of Fame inductees Category:African American female guitarists Category:African American female singers Category:Savoy Records artists Category:Columbia Records artists Category:Vocalion Records artists Category:Deaths from stroke Category:African American female singer-songwriters
