Perhaps the glamour of beaded and tiaraed blues royalty seemed wrong for a time of soup kitchens and extensive poverty, although blues listeners surely always lived in poverty. Minnie settled Memphis in the early ’20s. As a working musician, Minnie’s guitar style evolved partly in response to the kind of places she played and the people for whom she played. Their sessions in May and December of 1941 fused her more urban sound, (for example her vocal delivery on “Nothin’ In Ramblin”), with Son Joe’s back-up style, which combined big chords with an insistent beat to create a chunky swing feel. During this period Minnie began playing much less; the guitar no longer combines bass, treble and rhythm parts, leaving that to the other instruments, and instead starts to sound more like what we think of as blues today, with soulful bends and well-placed twangs on songs like the swing influenced “Good Morning”(1936) and “Hot Stuff”(1937), both of which she played in standard tuning.  There have been a number of re-releases of her work, and her songs, especially Chauffeur Blues, When The Levee Breaks, Black Rat Swing and What’s The Matter With The Mill? Listen to the Memphis Minnie Vol. Minnie worked the streets and parks with Jed Davenport’s Beale Street Jug Band, and her guitar playing was influenced by the popular jug band musician Frank Stokes, who’s guitar duets with Dan Sane are very similar to Minnie’s early style. Minnie used the name both publicly and privately, although her family still called her Kid. She also proved to have as good taste in musical husbands as music and sustained working marriages with guitarists Casey Bill Weldon, Joe McCoy, and Ernest Lawlars. MEMPHIS MINNIE & KANSAS JOE. Langston Hughes quote courtesy Vintage Books USA. Kansas Joe,and Minnie were guitarists of equal ability, and the interplay of their instruments is like a great conversation: with both of them switching between treble and bass. African, European and Indigenous traditions had begun to coalesce into the blues in the South much earlier than the ’20s, but our perception of history is usually based on recorded history: what gets recorded, written about and incorporated into our accepted common memory. If you are interested in Minnie’s guitar style, I’ve made a Homespun video on how to figure her guitar parts in the various keys she plays in. Play Memphis Minnie hit new songs and download Memphis Minnie MP3 songs and music album online on … ... (101 songs) Salt & Pepper 19-03-2015 Prison Bound Blues (Blues People - 1923 - 1930) 01. Lizzie Douglas was born on June 3, 1897 in Algiers, Louisiana. Despite her Southern roots and popularity, she was as much a Chicago blues artist as anyone in her day. The Songs. Music (like most things) was still homemade: for entertainment, people threw parties–suppers where roast shoat, custard pies and candy sticks dipped in corn whiskey got worked off dancing the “shoofly”, the “scratch” and the “shimmy-she-wobble.” Minnie started playing banjo when she was seven years old, and was influenced by the string bands which played for dancers who partied all night and hit the fields at dawn. The best tune of that session, in which Minnie generally sounded tired and overwrought, is “Downhome Girl” which is sung with great feeling but too many notes on the wrong frets. loud) sound. It was during this period that Bob Wills and some of his Texas Playboys saw her playing in Texas; they would later make her “What’s The Matter With The Mill?” a part of their repetoire. Some of Minnie’s best lyrics come from this period, like those in the autobiographical “In My Girlish Days”, (1941)which she played in G in standard tuning. It remains vital and influential today because of her inventive, rhythmic guitar playing and her songs, which capture people and events and bring them to life across the years. Memphis Minnie’s music remained popular over two decades because it was lyrically and instrumentally in tune with the lives of Black Americans. It’s rural party music, with doubling of parts helping punch the sound through in a loud environment in the pre-electric age. Songs of Minnie's such as 'When the Levee Breaks' and 'Can I Do It for You?' 04. Watch this for some tips: Anywhere you hear canned music now would probably have had a live musician–well, maybe not elevators. Starting in 1929, her records lead us through twenty years of recorded blues and illustrate her life, as she moved from the rural South to urban Chicago. Their marriage and musical partnership fell apart in the mid-thirties, around the same time Minnie became increasingly featured as a guitarist, vocalist and songwriter. She was born Lizzie Douglas in Algiers, LA. Find album reviews, stream songs, credits and award information for BD Blues: Memphis Minnie - Memphis Minnie on AllMusic   The commercial success of Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues” in 1920, alerted record companies to the existence of black record buyers. Stream ad-free with Amazon Music Unlimited on mobile, desktop, and tablet. She was known to spit mid-song without losing a beat. Minnie and Joe began a steady series of recording dates in New York, and Memphis, first for Columbia, later for Vocalion, Decca, Okeh and Bluebird. Memphis Minnie's songs: Listen to songs by Memphis Minnie on Myspace, Stream Free Online Music by Memphis Minnie Memphis Minnie (born Lizzie Douglas in Algiers, Louisiana, June 3, 1897 – August 6, 1973) was an American blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter from the late 1920s to the 1950s, one of the most influential country blues musicians to have ever recorded. She can walk”.   By 1929, Douglas had married another guitar-player, Joe McCoy, who was a good singer and guitarist, but reputedly a jealous fellow. Memphis Minnie covered Bumble Bee and When the Sun Goes Down - Part 2. Memphis Minnie. Their guitar duets span the spectrum of African-American folk and popular music, including spirituals, comic dialogs, and old-time dance pieces, but Memphis Minnie's best work consisted of deep blues like "Moaning the Blues." Brown provided the solid rhythm and bass lines she seemed to require from all her men. Minnie was quick to embrace the latest technologies in order to be heard above the crowds She was one of the first blues players to use a National in 1929, and to play an electric wood body National and various electric guitars in the ’40s and ’50s. Her recorded output is not necessarily the same as her live set. Terrell) were seldom recorded playing blues. The official job prospects for black women were limited to domestic service and farm work both of which demanded grueling labor and subservience for low pay. The companies began to seek out and record other singers in the same vaudevillian genre. Memphis Minnie (June 3, 1897 – August 6, 1973) was an American blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwr Some of her mid-thirties recordings incorporate piano, drums and a few horn players and after 1935, she joined the group of musicians who worked regularly for Lester Melrose, a producer and talent scout who supplied blues artists for a number of labels. are repertoire perennials. Complete song listing of Memphis Minnie on OLDIES.com. Broonzy and Minnie became good friends, and played together locally and on the road. Memphis Minnie’s music remained popular over two decades because it was lyrically and instrumentally in tune with the lives of Black Americans. In conjunction with the tunes I show on my homespun DVD The Blues Guitar Styles of Memphis Minnie, you should be able to figure these out with a little study.Never figured a tune out? Minnie’s fantastically vituperative vocal delivery on some songs may be due in part to having a cheek full of Copenhagen. Memphis Minnie, Black Bob, Bill Settles / Memphis Minnie: Memphis Minnie, Black Bob, Bill Settles / Memphis Minnie - Joe Louis Strut / He's In The Ring (Doing That Same Old Thing) ‎ (Shellac, 10") Vocalion (2) 03046: US: 1935: Sell This Version She recorded around 200 songs, some of the best known being "Bumble Bee", "Nothing in Rambling", and "Me and My Chauffeur Blues". Get all the lyrics to songs by Memphis Minnie and join the Genius community of music scholars to learn the meaning behind the lyrics.   Columbia was responsible for bestowing their geographical monikers: Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe. Record companies are remarkably mono-thematic about marketing, and Minnie, like many other blues musicians, played jazz and swing tunes as well, although there are only hints of this in her 200 recorded sides. He described the sound of her electric guitar as ” a musical version of electric welders plus a rolling mill”. Unlimited free Memphis Minnie music - Click to play My Gage Is Going Up, Can't Afford To Lose My Man and whatever else you want! The poet Langston Hughes was overwhelmed by Minnie’s “rolling mill” sounds. Perhaps it was cheaper to record a country boy’s guitar than an established vaudeville professional. Work camps, traveling shows major labels pulled out of the forties, audience... 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