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'''Jessie Mae Hemphill''' (October 18, 1923 – July 22, 2006) was a pioneering electric guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist specializing in the primal, northern Mississippi [[country blues]] traditions of her family and regional heritage. She was born near [[Como, Mississippi|Como]] and [[Senatobia, Mississippi]], in northern Mississippi just east of the [[Mississippi Delta]].
'''Jessie Mae Hemphill''' (October 18, 1923 &ndash; July 22, 2006) was a pioneering and award-winning electric guitarist, [[songwriter]], and vocalist specializing in the primal, northern [[Mississippi]] [[country blues]] traditions of her family and regional heritage.<ref name=nyt>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/arts/music/25hemphill.html Jessie Mae Hemphill, 71, Blues Musician, Dies] New York Times. July 25, 2006</ref>

⚫
==Life and Career==
Hemphill was born near [[Como, Mississippi|Como]] and [[Senatobia, Mississippi]], in northern Mississippi just east of the [[Mississippi Delta]]. She began playing the guitar at the age of seven and also played drums in various local Mississippi fife and drum bands.<ref name=nyt/> Her musical background began with playing snare drum and bass drum in the fife-and-drum band led by her grandfather, Sid Hemphill. Aside from sitting in at Memphis bars a few times in the 1950s, most of her playing was done in family and informal settings such as picnics with fife and drum music until her 1979 recordings.


⚫
==Career==
She began playing the guitar at the age of seven and also played drums in various local Mississippi fife and drum bands.


The first field recordings of her work were made by blues researcher [[George Mitchell (music historian)|George Mitchell]] in 1967 and [[ethnomusicologist]] Dr. David Evans in 1973 when she was known as Jessie Mae Brooks, using the surname from a brief early marriage, but the recordings were not released. In 1978, Dr. Evans came to [[Memphis, Tennessee|Memphis]] to teach at [[University of Memphis|Memphis State University]] (now University of Memphis). The school founded the [[High Water Recording Company|High Water]] label in 1979 to promote interest in the indigenous music of [[Southern U.S. states|The South]]. Evans made the first high-quality field recordings of Hemphill in that year and soon after produced her first sessions for the High Water label.
The first field recordings of her work were made by blues researcher [[George Mitchell (music historian)|George Mitchell]] in 1967 and [[ethnomusicologist]] Dr. David Evans in 1973 when she was known as Jessie Mae Brooks, using the surname from a brief early marriage, but the recordings were not released. In 1978, Dr. Evans came to [[Memphis, Tennessee|Memphis]] to teach at [[University of Memphis|Memphis State University]] (now University of Memphis). The school founded the [[High Water Recording Company|High Water]] label in 1979 to promote interest in the indigenous music of [[Southern U.S. states|The South]]. Evans made the first high-quality field recordings of Hemphill in that year and soon after produced her first sessions for the High Water label.


Hemphill then launched a recording career in the early 1980s, releasing singles produced by Evans on this university label, which later became a production company who licensed their masters to labels like HighTone and Inside Sounds. In 1981 her first full-length album, ''She-Wolf'', was licensed from High Water and released on France's Vogue Records. In the early 1980s, she performed in a Mississippi drum corps put together by Evans composed of herself, Abe Young, and Jim Harper on [[Tav Falco's Panther Burns|Tav Falco's Panther Burns']] ''Behind the Magnolia Curtain'' album; she also appeared in another drum group with Young and fife-and-drum band veteran [[Othar Turner]] in a televised appearance in ''[[Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood]]''. Other recordings of hers were released on the French label Black and Blue, and she performed concerts across the United States and other countries including France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and Canada. She received the [[Blues Music Award|W. C. Handy Award]] for best traditional female blues artist in 1987 and 1988.
Hemphill then launched a recording career in the early 1980s, a period which which be her heyday.<ref>[http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/58613250.html?dids=58613250:58613250&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Jun+02%2C+1986&author=DON+SNOWDEN&pub=Los+Angeles+Times+(pre-1997+Fulltext)&desc=HYPNOTIC+HEMPHILL&pqatl=google HYPNOTIC HEMPHILL] Los Angeles Times. Jun 2, 1986</ref> In 1981 her first full-length album, ''She-Wolf'', was licensed from High Water and released on France's Vogue Records. In the early 1980s, she performed in a Mississippi drum corps put together by Evans composed of herself, Abe Young, and Jim Harper on [[Tav Falco's Panther Burns|Tav Falco's Panther Burns']] ''Behind the Magnolia Curtain'' album; she also appeared in another drum group with Young and fife-and-drum band veteran [[Othar Turner]] in a televised appearance in ''[[Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood]]''. Other recordings of hers were released on the French label Black and Blue, and she performed concerts across the United States and other countries including France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and Canada. She received the [[Blues Music Award|W. C. Handy Award]] for best traditional female blues artist in 1987 and 1988.<ref name=nyt/>


In 1990 her first American full length album, ''Feelin' Good'', was released, which also won a Handy Award for best acoustic album. Hemphill suffered a stroke that paralyzed her left side in 1993, preventing her from playing guitar, resulting in her retiring at that time from her blues career. Her musical background began with playing snare drum and bass drum in the fife-and-drum band led by her grandfather, Sid Hemphill. Aside from sitting in at Memphis bars a few times in the 1950s, most of her playing was done in family and informal settings such as picnics with fife and drum music until her 1979 recordings.
In 1990 her first American full length album, ''Feelin' Good'', was released, which also won a Handy Award for best acoustic album.<ref name=nyt/> Hemphill suffered a stroke that paralyzed her left side in 1993, preventing her from playing guitar, resulting in her retiring at that time from her blues career.<ref>[http://www.mswritersandmusicians.com/musicians/jessie-mae-hemphill.html MISSISSIPPI MUSICIANS: Jessie Mae Hemphill</ref> However, she did continue to play, accompanying her band on the tambourine. <ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/arts/blues-review-transporting-delta-tunes-from-the-farm-to-the-city.html BLUES REVIEW; Transporting Delta Tunes From the Farm To the City] The New York Times. November 12, 2001</ref>


⚫
In 2003, her protege and collaborator, [[Olga Wilhelmine Munding]] founded the ''Jessie Mae Hemphill Foundatio''n to preserve and archive the indigenous music of northern Mississippi and to provide assistance for musicians in need from the region who could not survive on meager publishing royalties. <ref name=nyt/> The same year, HighTone released ''Heritage of the Blues: Shake It, Baby'', a budget CD containing tracks from previous releases, along wit h three previously unreleased tracks. <ref>[http://www.hightone.com/index.php?osCsid=48f5983e7708762121e931621a46593b&manufacturers_id=67&osCsid=48f5983e7708762121e931621a46593b "Jessie Mae Hemphill CDs".] ''HighTone label site''. (Used as discography source info). Accessed May 2, 2005.</ref>
She was unique in country blues as a female defying tradition by singing her own original material while accompanying herself on electric guitar and playing tambourine with her foot. She employs a folk-blues open tuning style with a hypnotic drone in her guitar playing instead of relying on standard, 12-bar blues styles. She occasionally was accompanied on a second guitar by producer Evans.


⚫
In 2004 Wilhelmine and Tyler Austin of the fledgling Jessie Mae Hemphill Foundation released ''Dare You to Do It Again'', a double album of [[gospel music|gospel]] standards, newly recorded by the ailing vocalist singing and playing tambourine with accompaniment from Steve Gardner, [[DJ Logic]], and descendants of the late musicians [[Junior Kimbrough]], [[R. L. Burnside]], and [[Otha Turner]]. The release, her first recordings since the 1993 stroke, also included a DVD. <ref name=nyt/>
⚫
French videographer Marc Oriol produced a documentary on Hemphill called ''Me & My Guitar, Jessie Mae Hemphill'', which was shown on France's TV Cannes in 2001. In 2003 Olga Wilhelmine founded the Jessie Mae Hemphill Foundation to preserve and archive the indigenous music of northern Mississippi and to provide assistance for musicians in need from the region who could not survive on meager publishing royalties. The same year, HighTone released ''Heritage of the Blues: Shake It, Baby'', a budget CD containing tracks from previous releases, along with three previously unreleased tracks.

⚫
In 2004 Wilhelmine and Tyler Austin of the fledgling Jessie Mae Hemphill Foundation released ''Dare You to Do It Again'', a double album of [[gospel music|gospel]] standards, newly recorded by the ailing vocalist singing and playing tambourine with accompaniment from Steve Gardner, [[DJ Logic]], and descendants of the late musicians [[Junior Kimbrough]], [[R. L. Burnside]], and [[Otha Turner]]. The release, her first recordings since the 1993 stroke, also included a DVD.


Also in 2004, Inside Sounds released ''Get Right Blues'', containing material recorded from 1979 through the early 1980s; Black & Blue released ''Mississippi Blues Festival'', which included seven live tracks by her from a Paris concert in 1986.
Also in 2004, Inside Sounds released ''Get Right Blues'', containing material recorded from 1979 through the early 1980s; Black & Blue released ''Mississippi Blues Festival'', which included seven live tracks by her from a Paris concert in 1986.


On July 22, 2006, Jessie Mae Hemphill died at The Regional Medical Center in Memphis, after experiencing complications from an ulcer.
On July 22, 2006, Jessie Mae Hemphill died at The Regional Medical Center in Memphis, after experiencing complications from an ulcer.<ref name=nyt/>


==Discography==
==Discography==
Line 59: Line 58:


==References==
==References==
{{Reflist}}
* Associated Press (July 23, 2006). [http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/state/15106307.htm "Blues artist Hemphill dies at 71".] ''The Sun Herald''. Accessed Jul. 24, 2006.
* Ellis, Bill (February 21, 2004). "Hemphill Delights on Live Double-disc Hootenanny." ''The Commercial Appeal''. Accessed May 1, 2005.
⚫
* Evans, Dr. David (1993). "Jessie Mae Hemphill." ''Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia'', ed. Darlene Clark Hine. Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing. Vol. 1, pp. 555&ndash;556.
* Flaska, Barbara. [http://www.popmatters.com/music/reviews/h/hemphilljessiemae-feelin.shtml "Jessie Mae Hemphill: The High Water Mark Keeps Rising."] ''PopMatters''. Accessed May 1, 2005.
* [http://www.jmhemphill.org/bio.html "Jessie Mae Hemphill".] ''Jessie Mae Hemphill Foundation website bio''. Accessed May 1, 2005, and Jul. 23, 2006.
*[http://www.hightone.com/index.php?osCsid=48f5983e7708762121e931621a46593b&manufacturers_id=67&osCsid=48f5983e7708762121e931621a46593b "Jessie Mae Hemphill CDs".] ''HighTone label site''. (Used as discography source info). Accessed May 2, 2005.
* Jones, Yolanda (July 24, 2006). [http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/local/article/0,2845,MCA_25340_4865298,00.html "Blues musician Jessie Mae Hemphill dies".] ''The Commercial Appeal''. Accessed Jul. 24, 2006.
* Koda, Cub and Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. [{{Allmusic|class=artist|id=p365/biography|pure_url=yes}} "Jessie Mae Hemphill biography".] ''Allmusic''. Accessed May 1, 2005.
* LaBalle, Candace (2002). "Jessie Mae Hemphill: Blues Musician, Singer". ''Contemporary Black Biography: Profiles from the International Black Community'', ed. Ashyia Henderson. Detroit: Thomson/Gale. Vol. 33, pp. 81&ndash;84.
* LaBalle, Candace (2002). "Jessie Mae Hemphill: Blues Musician, Singer". ''Contemporary Black Biography: Profiles from the International Black Community'', ed. Ashyia Henderson. Detroit: Thomson/Gale. Vol. 33, pp. 81&ndash;84.
⚫
* Evans, Dr. David (1993). "Jessie Mae Hemphill." ''Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia'', ed. Darlene Clark Hine. Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing. Vol. 1, pp. 555&ndash;556.
* Mitchell, George (1971). ''Blow My Blues Away''. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, pp. 76&ndash;99

* Wirz, Stefan (2005). [http://www.wirz.de/music/lewisfrm.htm "Walter Furry Lewis Discography."] ''Stefan Wirz's American Music pages''. Accessed May 1, 2005.


==External links==
==External links==
* [http://www.jmhemphill.org/ Jessie Mae Hemphill Foundation]
* [http://www.jmhemphill.org/ Jessie Mae Hemphill Foundation]
* [http://www.catfishkeith.com/jessiemaepage.htm CatfishKeith Update on Jessie Mae Hemphill]


{{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]]. -->
{{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]]. -->

Revision as of 03:04, 3 May 2011

Jessie Mae Hemphill

Jessie Mae Hemphill (October 18, 1923 – July 22, 2006) was a pioneering and award-winning electric guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist specializing in the primal, northern Mississippi country blues traditions of her family and regional heritage.[1]

Life and Career

Hemphill was born near Como and Senatobia, Mississippi, in northern Mississippi just east of the Mississippi Delta. She began playing the guitar at the age of seven and also played drums in various local Mississippi fife and drum bands.[1] Her musical background began with playing snare drum and bass drum in the fife-and-drum band led by her grandfather, Sid Hemphill. Aside from sitting in at Memphis bars a few times in the 1950s, most of her playing was done in family and informal settings such as picnics with fife and drum music until her 1979 recordings.


The first field recordings of her work were made by blues researcher George Mitchell in 1967 and ethnomusicologist Dr. David Evans in 1973 when she was known as Jessie Mae Brooks, using the surname from a brief early marriage, but the recordings were not released. In 1978, Dr. Evans came to Memphis to teach at Memphis State University (now University of Memphis). The school founded the High Water label in 1979 to promote interest in the indigenous music of The South. Evans made the first high-quality field recordings of Hemphill in that year and soon after produced her first sessions for the High Water label.

Hemphill then launched a recording career in the early 1980s, a period which which be her heyday.[2] In 1981 her first full-length album, She-Wolf, was licensed from High Water and released on France's Vogue Records. In the early 1980s, she performed in a Mississippi drum corps put together by Evans composed of herself, Abe Young, and Jim Harper on Tav Falco's Panther Burns' Behind the Magnolia Curtain album; she also appeared in another drum group with Young and fife-and-drum band veteran Othar Turner in a televised appearance in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Other recordings of hers were released on the French label Black and Blue, and she performed concerts across the United States and other countries including France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and Canada. She received the W. C. Handy Award for best traditional female blues artist in 1987 and 1988.[1]

In 1990 her first American full length album, Feelin' Good, was released, which also won a Handy Award for best acoustic album.[1] Hemphill suffered a stroke that paralyzed her left side in 1993, preventing her from playing guitar, resulting in her retiring at that time from her blues career.[3] However, she did continue to play, accompanying her band on the tambourine. [4]

In 2003, her protege and collaborator, Olga Wilhelmine Munding founded the Jessie Mae Hemphill Foundation to preserve and archive the indigenous music of northern Mississippi and to provide assistance for musicians in need from the region who could not survive on meager publishing royalties. [1] The same year, HighTone released Heritage of the Blues: Shake It, Baby, a budget CD containing tracks from previous releases, along wit h three previously unreleased tracks. [5]

In 2004 Wilhelmine and Tyler Austin of the fledgling Jessie Mae Hemphill Foundation released Dare You to Do It Again, a double album of gospel standards, newly recorded by the ailing vocalist singing and playing tambourine with accompaniment from Steve Gardner, DJ Logic, and descendants of the late musicians Junior Kimbrough, R. L. Burnside, and Otha Turner. The release, her first recordings since the 1993 stroke, also included a DVD. [1]

Also in 2004, Inside Sounds released Get Right Blues, containing material recorded from 1979 through the early 1980s; Black & Blue released Mississippi Blues Festival, which included seven live tracks by her from a Paris concert in 1986.

On July 22, 2006, Jessie Mae Hemphill died at The Regional Medical Center in Memphis, after experiencing complications from an ulcer.[1]

Discography

  • She-Wolf (1981; reissued 1998)
  • Swamp Surfing in Memphis (various artists, 1986, rereleased 1998)
  • Mississippi Blues Festival (various artists, 1986; reissued 2004)
  • Giants of Country Blues Guitar (1967–1981) (various artists, 1988)
  • Feelin' Good (1990; reissued 1997 with extra tracks)
  • The Fabulous Low-Price HMG Blues Sampler (various artists, 1997)
  • Deep South Blues (various artists, 1999)
  • Heritage of the Blues: Shake It Baby (2003)
  • Dare You to Do It Again (2004)
  • Get Right Blues (2004)
  • Mississippi Blues Festival (also includes tracks by Hezekiah & the House Rockers, 2004)
  • On Air: Live Music From The WEVL Archives (various artists, 1996)
  • Foot Hill Stomp (2002) Richard Johnston with Jessie Mae Hemphill

Films

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/arts/music/25hemphill.html Jessie Mae Hemphill, 71, Blues Musician, Dies] New York Times. July 25, 2006
  2. ^ HYPNOTIC HEMPHILL Los Angeles Times. Jun 2, 1986
  3. ^ [http://www.mswritersandmusicians.com/musicians/jessie-mae-hemphill.html MISSISSIPPI MUSICIANS: Jessie Mae Hemphill
  4. ^ BLUES REVIEW; Transporting Delta Tunes From the Farm To the City The New York Times. November 12, 2001
  5. ^ "Jessie Mae Hemphill CDs". HighTone label site. (Used as discography source info). Accessed May 2, 2005.
  • LaBalle, Candace (2002). "Jessie Mae Hemphill: Blues Musician, Singer". Contemporary Black Biography: Profiles from the International Black Community, ed. Ashyia Henderson. Detroit: Thomson/Gale. Vol. 33, pp. 81–84.
  • Evans, Dr. David (1993). "Jessie Mae Hemphill." Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, ed. Darlene Clark Hine. Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing. Vol. 1, pp. 555–556.


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