Memphis Minnie
is considered by many to be the best female blues singer
of all time. Guitar player and blues singer, she
not only ranks along with the blues' best female
artists, but also along with the best male blues artists
as well. She was among the first twenty performers
elected to the Hall of Fame in the inaugural W. C. Handy
awards in 1980 (Garon, 1991).
Around 1904, Minnie (born Lizzie Douglas) and her
family moved to a farm in Wall, Mississippi, which is
just south of Memphis, Tennessee. She received
her first guitar in 1905 as a Christmas present.
She was soon playing guitar and banjo, and sometime
during her early teens began running away from home to
play on Memphis' Beale Street. During the war,
she began touring the south with a Ringling Brothers
show to gain experience (Garon, 1992).
Minnie was as tough a drinker and blues singer as any
man. She returned to Memphis in the 20s where,
accompanied by her guitarist, second husband Kansas
Joe McCoy, she was discovered on Beale Street by
Columbia Records in 1929. Later that year, she
recorded her first song, one of her most successful
tunes, "Bumble Bee."
Minnie and Joe soon became part of the growing
Chicago blues scene after moving to the city in
1930. Minnie recorded for a number of labels and
with a number of blues men before illness forced her
to retire in the mid-50s. She moved back to
Memphis where she spent the remainder of her life
until she died of a stroke in 1973 (Santelli, 1993).
*birthdate according to Minnie's
death certificate
Garon, Paul. Liner
notes. Memphis Minnie: Hoodoo Lady
(1933 - 1937). Columbia, 1991.
Garon, Paul and Beth. Woman
With Guitar: Memphis Minnie's Blues.
New York, NY: Da Capo Publishing, 1992.
Santelli,
Robert.
The Big Book of Blues. New York,
NY: Penguin Publishing, 1993.
