| Artist: Memphis Minnie |
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| Discography: Memphis Minnie |
| Black Biography: Memphis Minnie |
blues singer; guitarist; composer
Personal Information
Born Lizzie Douglas on June 3, 1897, in Algiers, Louisiana; died on August 6, 1973, in Memphis; married Casey Bill Weldon (divorced); Kansas Joe McCoy (divorced); Little Son Joe.
Religion: Baptist.
Career
Blues artist, member of Memphis Jug Band; recorded with Sunnyland Slim, Blind John Davis, Hambone Lewis, Charlie McCoy, Myrtle Jenkins. Recorded on several labels including Decca, Vocalian, Columbia, Bluebird, Okeh, Regal, Checker, and JOB.
Life's Work
The blues scene in the 1920s and 1930s was diverse in style--spanning classic, urban, and country blues--but almost completely homogenous in terms of gender. Men dominated the stages of juke joints and nightclubs, with very few women breaking the ranks of blues musicians. However, there were a few exceptions who made their mark. One such woman was Memphis Minnie, the most significant female country blues singer to emerge during that era.
She is credited as being one of the first blues artists--male or female--to use the electric guitar, preceding Muddy Waters' use of the instrument by a year. Memphis Minnie's style of guitar playing reflected how she lived her life--hard-driving, passionate, and contrary to what was expected of women at the time. Although she made numerous recordings over the course of a career which spanned three decades, none of them captured the raw energy of the live performances that earned her a place next to other female blues greats like Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. Fortunately, the power of her musical style lives on through the many well-known blues performers influenced by this dynamic musician, including Brewer Phillips, Big Momma Thornton, and Koko Taylor, as well as Rock & Roll artists such as Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, and the Rolling Stones.
Began Playing at a Young Age
Minnie, who also went by the names Texas Tessie, Minnie McCoy, and Gospel Minnie, was born Lizzie Douglas on June 3, 1897, in Algiers, Louisiana, a city located near the mouth of the Mississippi River, across from the old slave docks in New Orleans. Minnie was the first of thirteen children born to Abe and Gertrude Douglas, who were Baptist sharecroppers. In 1904 Minnie moved with her family to Walls, Mississippi, located just south of Memphis. Soon after the move, Minnie's parents gave her a guitar for her birthday. She quickly learned how to play her guitar and began entertaining at parties in her neighborhood, picking up the nickname "Kid Douglas." When she got a little older, "Kid" often snuck into Memphis, where she sang and played in parks and on the street corners around town for tips, meeting other musicians and getting her first taste of the early Memphis blues scene.
In the mid-1910s, Minnie joined the Ringling Brothers Circus and traveled throughout the South, entertaining crowds with her music. Eventually, Minnie quit the circus and moved to the Bedford Plantation in Mississippi. There she spent several years "woodshedding" with a guitar and mandolin player, Willie Brown, who had at one time played with both Charley Patton and Robert Johnson. According to www.worcesterphoenix.com, guitarist Willie Moore, who played with Minnie and Willie Brown said, "Wasn't nothing he could teach her. Everything Willie Brown could play, she could play, and then she could play things he couldn't play."
Minnie eventually returned to Memphis, and was already tough and street-wise by the time she established herself as part of the Beale Street blues scene, an environment that had the reputation of being rough and somewhat seedy, in which only a woman of extraordinary strength and resourcefulness could survive. As quoted in the book Woman with Guitar: Memphis Minnie Blues, one observer said, "Any men fool with her she'd go right after them right away. She didn't take no foolishness off them. Guitar, pocket knife, pistol, anything she get her hand on she'd use it." Economic necessity dictated Minnie's close proximity to street life as she subsidized her income with prostitution, charging the relatively large sum of $12 for her services. Minnie also gained a reputation for partying and gambling.
Created the Hard-Driving Electric Sound
For several years, Minnie was a member of the Memphis Jug Band and recorded with several artists. In 1929 Minnie was discovered by a talent scout from Columbia Records and recorded her first song, "Bumble Bee," under the name of Memphis Minnie, along with her second husband, the guitarist Kansas Joe McCoy (her first husband was guitarist Casey Bill Weldon). The recording brought the pair enough recognition to move on to Chicago, the hub of the blues scene, where Minnie would live for the next twenty-five years. Besides being a woman in a male-dominated music scene, Minnie literally "stood out" from other musicians by playing lead guitar while standing, at a time when everyone else played their guitars sitting down. She also tried new styles of music, new picking styles, and new instruments. Minnie was the first to record with what came to be known as the "classic" 1950s blues combo: electric guitar, piano, bass, and drums. It has also been noted that Minnie was among the first to play the electric guitar in 1943, at least one year before Muddy Waters did. Writer Langston Hughes described her performance in an article about her in the January 9, 1943, Chicago Defender, noting, "She grabs the microphone and yells, 'Hey now!' Then she hits a few deep chords at random, leans forward ever so slightly on her guitar, bows her head and begins to beat out...a rhythm so contagious that often it makes the crowd holler out loud....All these things cry through the strings on Memphis Minnie's electric guitar, amplified to machine proportions--a musical version of electric welders plus a rolling mill."
Minnie proved that she could hold her own with her male peers during energetic guitar contests where the winner was decided by the intensity of applause from the audience. Competing sometimes for just a bottle of whiskey, Minnie took on blues artists such as Big Bill Broonzy, Tampa Red, Sunnyland Slim, and Muddy Waters. She often won, although she sometimes picked an opportune moment during these contests to lift her skirt in order to increase the applause.
Unfortunately, Minnie was never recorded playing her characteristic hard-driving electric sound. Minnie, like many other African-American blues artists, was essentially controlled by the impresario Lester Melrose, who handled all the details of the recording business for most of the "race record" labels during that era. Melrose instructed his musicians to record a toned-down version of the blues, a formulaic approach that became known as the Melrose Sound, the Bluebird Beat, the Melrose Mess, or the Melrose Machine. Even Minnie's recordings for other labels such as Decca failed to capture her spirited approach to the blues. However, Minnie's willingness to teach and nurture other young musicians ensured that her style was passed on to the next generation of blues artists.
Forced Into Retirement
In addition to watering down her music, the record labels prevented Minnie from reaping the economic benefits of her success. One of her protegés, Brewer Phillips, conveyed that Minnie claimed to have been "messed around in the music" and gave him the advice, "You can learn to play, but don't let them take your money." In 1958 Minnie and third husband Little Son Joe returned to Memphis, and lived in poverty. Aside from an occasional live radio spot, Minnie was no longer performing; her last performance was at a memorial for her friend and fellow musician, Bill Broonzy, in 1959. She had a stroke in 1960, Joe died in 1961, and shortly thereafter Minnie suffered another debilitating stroke which left her confined to a wheelchair for the last thirteen years of her life. Her sister, Daisy, cared for Minnie during her remaining years. Sadly, the woman who contributed so much to the early blues scene was ill and destitute at the end of her life. However, word of her predicament spread through the music community. Several artists held benefits to raise money for her care and the magazines Living Blues and Blues Unlimited helped to spread the word about Minnie's need, generating monetary support from fans.
Memphis Minnie died August 6, 1973, in Memphis. She is buried in New Hope Cemetery in Walls, Mississippi, in an unmarked grave. Posthumously, Blues World described Minnie's 1934 recording, Early Rhythm & Blues, as "the seminal electric sound guitar, bass, piano, drums which eventually cohesed into the style heard round the world." She was among the first musicians to be inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame, in 1980.
Awards
Inducted into Blues Foundation Hall of Fame, 1980; Blues Unlimited Reader's Poll, 1973.
Works
Selected discography
Further Reading
Books
— Christine Miner Minderovic
| Wikipedia: Memphis Minnie |
| Memphis Minnie | |
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 Portrait (ca. 1930) on Minnie's gravemarker
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Lizzie Douglas |
| Born | June 3, 1897 Algiers, Louisiana, United States |
| Origin | Algiers, Louisiana, United States |
| Died | August 6, 1973 (aged 76) Memphis, Tennessee, United States |
| Genre(s) | Blues |
| Occupation(s) | Guitarist, vocalist, songwriter |
| Instrument(s) | Guitar, electric guitar, bass, banjo, drums |
| Years active | 1920s – 1950s |
| Label(s) | Okeh, Columbia, Vocalion, Decca, Bluebird |
Memphis Minnie (June 3, 1897 – August 6, 1973[1]) was an American blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. She was the only female blues artist who matched her male contemporaries as both a singer and an instrumentalist.[2]
Contents |
Born Lizzie Douglas in Algiers, Louisiana, Minnie was one of the most influential and pioneering female blues musicians and guitarists of all time.[1] 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 silver dollars, she was the biggest female blues singer from the early Depression years through World War II. One of the first 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.
She was married three times, and each husband was an accomplished blues guitarist: Kansas Joe McCoy later of the Harlem Hamfats, Casey Bill Weldon of the Memphis Jug Band, and Ernest "Little Son Joe" Lawlers.[1] 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.[3]
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 debut 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.[4] 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, with whom she recorded nearly 200 records.[2] 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".[2]
Later in the 1940s Minnie lived in Indianapolis, Indiana and Detroit, Michigan, returning to Chicago in the early 1950s.[2] From the 1950s on, however, public interest in her music declined, and in 1957 she and Lawlers returned to Memphis. Lawlers died in 1961.[5]
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, where she died of a stroke in 1973 in Memphis, Tennessee.[6] She is buried at the New Hope Baptist Church Cemetery in 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 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."[7]
| Year | Title | Genre | Label | Songs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | I Ain't No Bad Gal | Blues | Portrait | "You Need A Friend", "Can't Afford To Loose 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 |
Minnie lived to see her reputation revive in the 1960s as part of the general revival of interest in the blues. In 1980, she was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame.[8]
"When the Levee Breaks", a 1929 Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy song,[9] was later covered (with slightly altered lyrics and a different melody) by Led Zeppelin and released in 1971 on their fourth album. The same song was used by Bob Dylan for his song "The Levee's Gonna Break", on the 2006 album Modern Times.
"When the Levee Breaks" was played in the movie 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". A 1948 song, "Shout the Boogie", contained the line, "cool as a fool from Liverpool"
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 | Ramblin' (1979 Album by Lucinda Williams) |
| Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 2 (1930-1931) (1991 Album by Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe) |
| Early Rhythm & Blues from the Rare Regal Sessions: 1934-1942 (1992 Album by Memphis Minnie) |
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 | Artist. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Black Biography. Contemporary Black Biography. Copyright © 2006 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Memphis Minnie". Read more |
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