Memphis Minnie

Name: Memphis Minnie
Born/Died: 3rd June, 1897 (Algiers, Louisiana) - 6th August, 1973

Profile: She 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, Minnie was one of the most influential and pioneering female blues guitarists of all time.

History: After learning to play guitar and banjo as a child, she ran away from home at the age of 13. 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 recording debut came in 1929, 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 30's she moved to Chicago, Illinois where she recorded nearly 200 records. 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.

In 1942, she was one of the first blues artists to take up the electric guitar, she combined her Louisiana-country roots with Memphis blues to produce her own unique country-blues sound, 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.

Influences: Unknown

Axology: Unknown

Link(s):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhis33IOXN0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQwGhSiEMzE