Memphis Minnie

Memphis Minnie
Portrait (ca. 1930) on Minnie's gravemarker Portrait (ca. 1930) on Minnie's gravemarker
Background information
Birth name	Lizzie Douglas
Born	(1897-06-03)June 3, 1897 Algiers, Louisiana, United States
Died	August 6, 1973(1973-08-06) (aged 76) Memphis, Tennessee, United States
Genres	Blues
Occupation(s)	Guitarist, vocalist, songwriter
Instrument(s)	Guitar, electric guitar, bass, banjo, drums
Years active	1920s–1950s
Labels	Okeh, Columbia, Vocalion, Decca, Bluebird, Checker, JOB

Memphis Minnie (June 3, 1897 – 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.

Career

Born Lizzie Douglas in Algiers, Louisiana, Minnie was one of the most influential and pioneering 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 not so common in any blues artist. A flamboyant character who wore bracelets made of silver dollars, she was a very popular blues recording artist from the early 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 "Little Son Joe" Lawlers. 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.

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. 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. Lawlers died in 1961.

Personal Life

Memphis Minnie was the eldest of thirteen children born to Abe and Gertrude Wells Douglas. Her family called her "Kid" throughout her childhood because she never liked the name "Lizzie" (Garron 14). Her younger sister Daisy is the only surviving sibling of the Douglas family. Daisy and her went to elementary school together in Brunswick, Tennessee at a school called Morning Grove School. At the age of 7, her family moved to Walls Mississippi, a town not too far from Memphis, Tennessee. In 1910, at the age of 13, she ran away from home to live on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee although she would periodically return to her family's farm whenever she ran out of money (Garon 14-15). The majority of the time, she played her guitar and sang on the street corners. Like many other women who were in a financial struggle and who performed in the Beale street Blues scene, Minnie turned to prostitution where she would earn $12 dollars for her services which at the time was a lot of money Her sidewalk performances eventually led to a four year tour of the South with the Ringling Brothers Circus from 1916 to 1920. She was known for being an independent woman who knew how to take care of herself and when a man ever tried fooling her or do her wrong she would go after them with a pocket knife, her guitar, or anything she can get her hands on. She would chew tobacco all the time including whenever she sang or played her guitar. She always had a mug at hand in case she ever wanted to spit. Most of the music she mad was autobiographical; Minnie expressed a lot of her personal life in through her music. In the 1930s when she would finish traveling and performing in several different states, Minnie would go back to friends homes because she didn't really have no place else to go. Minnie's mother died in 1922 when Minnie was 25 years old. Her father decided to move back to Walls Mississippi where he died thirteen years later in 1935. Minnie was married three times. Although there is no evidence of their marriage certificate, her first husband was Will Weldon who she married in the early 1920's. Her second husband was guitarist and mandolin player Joe McCoy (aka Kansas Joe McCoy) whom she married in 1929. That same year, her and Kansas Joe McCoy began to perform together. They were discovered by a talent scout of Columbia Records in front of a barber shop where they were playing for dimes (Garon 24). Together, they went to New York to record their music and this is when she decided to change her name to Memphis Minnie. They filed for divorce in 1934 because McCoy became increasingly jealous of Minnie's rise to fame and success. In 1939, she met guitarist Earnest Lawlers (aka Little Son Joe). He became her new musical partner and they married shortly thereafter. Son Joe attributed songs to her including "Key to The World" in which he addresses her as "the woman I got now" and calls her "the key to the world." By the late 1940s, clubs began hiring younger and cheaper artists to play shows at their venues so Columbia began dropping Blues artists including Memphis Minnie. Minnie was not religious and seldom went to church, in fact the only time she would ever go to church was to see Gospel groups perform. She had a stroke in 1960 which made her bound to a wheelchair for the rest of her life which ended on August 6 of 1973. The home she once lived in still exists today at 1355 Adelaide Street in Memphis, Tennessee. Sauer, Steve. "Former Home of Led Zeppelin Inspiration Memphis Minnie Wastes Away." Goldmine, (2010): 55.

Death

Memphis Minnie's grave (2008)

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 where she died of a stroke in 1973. 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 (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."

Compilations

Year	Album	Genre	Label	Songs
1982	The Best of Memphis Minnie Vol. 11929-1938	Blues	Earl	”’Frisco Town”, “Bumble Bee”, “Grandpa and Grandma Blues”, “Garage Fire Blues", and more
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
2008	Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe – Early Recordings (1929-1936)	Blues	Autogram	”Goin’ Back To Texas”, “I’m Talkin About You”, “Bumble Bee”, “I’m Going Back Home”, and more
unknown	Gonna Take The Dirt Road Home: Memphis Minnie In The Forties	Blues	Origin Jazz Library	”Blue Monday Blues”, “Moaning Blues”, “Shout The Boogie”, “Hold Me Blues”, and more
unknown	City Blues	Blues	Aldabra Records	”Dirty Mother For You”, “Keep On Goin’”, “Jockey Man Blues”, “He’s In The Ring”, and more
unknown	Travelling Blues	Blues	Aldabra Records	”Going Back To Texas”, “Frisco Town”, “Bumble Bee”, “She Wouldn’t Give Me None”, and more

Songs

List of Memphis Minnie songs

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 Hall of Fame.

Miscellaneous Information

"When the Levee Breaks", a 1929 Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy song, was later covered (with slightly altered lyrics and a different melody) by Led Zeppelin and released in 1971 on their fourth album.

"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".

External links

• Listen to "When the Levee Breaks" at the "Internet Archive" (archive.org)
• Delta Blues Bio and Samples of "Bumble Bee Blues" and "Soo Cow Soo"
• Find A Grave Memorial
• [1] Mount Zion memorial Fund

Year	Title	Genre	Label
1968	Blind Willie McTell And Memphis Minnie – Love Changin’ Blues	blues	Biograph Records
1973	1934-1941	blues	Flyright Records
1973	1941-1949	blues	Flyright Records
1977	1936-1949 Hot Stuff	blues	Magpie Records
1982	World Of Trouble	blues	Flyright Records
1983	Moaning The Blues	blues	MCA Records
1984	In My Girlish Days 1930-1935	blues	Travelin’ Man
1987	1930-1941	blues	Old Tramp
1988	I Ain’t No Bad Girl	blues	CBS
1991	Hoodoo Lady 1933-1937	blues	Columbia
1994	In My Girlish Days	blues	Blues Encore
1996	Let’s Go To Town	blues	Orbis
1997	Queen Of The Blues	blues	Columbia
1997	The Queen Of The Blues 1929-1941	blues	Frémeaux & Associés
2000	Pickin’ The Blues	blues	Catfish Records
2003	Me And My Chauffeur Blues	blues	Proper Records Ltd.
2007	Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order – Volume 1 – 10 January To 31 October 1935	blues	Document Records
unknown	Ma Rainey / Memphis Minnie – Night Time Blues	blues	History
unknown	Vol. 2 Early Recordings With Kansas Joe McCoy	blues	Blues Classics
unknown	Blues Classics By Memphis Minnie	blues	Blues Classics