Memphis Minnie Born:  1897 Died: 1973

If you are following the trail on this site or just following Memphis blues on your own you will have noticed some patterns.  First the heyday of Memphis blues occurred before most people knew there was such a thing as the blues.  Without a doubt W.C. Handy and no one else put the blues on the map just after the turn of the century.  Like many blues men after him, Handy had moved north to Memphis, not south.  Most early blues men came from the deep south and headed to Memphis which was the closest large, urban area.  Later the second part of the trend would kick in which was the move north to Chicago, a move triggered by the higher wages and better treatment for African Americans.

In a nutshell Memphis was the place where black performers, especially from central Mississippi came to improve their financial status until that same financial status could be improved more in Chicago and later Detroit.  Musicians such as Big Bill Broonzy might light here over night, then go to Chicago to record and play locally for higher stakes.  The best times for Beale Street were roughly between the turn of the century and the late 1920s.  During this time many Memphis musicians cut records and became known locally or regionally, but only a minority would go on to be known internationally or reach long-term legend status.  Among those who did were W.C. Handy, Memphis Slim, Ma Rainey and Memphis Minnie.

Memphis Minnie was born on June 3, 1897, in Algiers, Louisiana, with the given name of Lizzie Douglas.  Known as “Kid“ to her family Minnie was a minor prodigy learning the banjo at seven years old.  She seemed to never doubt that playing a guitar was better than the back-breaking labor of working the fields, or the long hours of domestic work available to women.  Very early in her childhood the family relocated to Walls, Mississippi just south of Memphis.  During her teens she began to play the street corners in Memphis with the guitar, her second instrument.

Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe

Later in her teens Memphis Minnie ran off and joined the circus.  She toured the south with the Ringling Brothers Circus as a musician.  During the later 1920s Minnie was playing with the man commonly thought to be her second husband, “Kansas Joe“ McCoy (an earlier relationship with blues man Casey Bill Weldon, Hawaiian slack key guitarist from the Memphis Jug Band, may or may not have been a marriage).  Minnie and Kansas Joe worked guitar duets impressive enough to get themselves a recording contract with Columbia Records in 1929 after having been discovered by a talent scout on Beale Street. In 1930 Minnie and Joe migrated up to Chicago where the blues scene was starting to expand.  They began to record there and their first session yielded the song “Bumble Bee“ which always remained among her most popular songs.

The couple put their “Memphis Sound“ on a number of successful sides before their break up in 1935.  Indeed the couple owed their municipal monikers of “Memphis Minnie“ and “Kansas Joe“ to Columbia Records.  Although the couple divorced, the reputation they built together was enough to propel both of their careers forward.  By that time Minnie had formed relationships with Big Bill Broonzy, Tampa Red, Georgia Tom and others.  

There is a persistent story / legend that Minnie “beat Big Bill in a blues contest“.  If there was such a contest it is not hard to imagine Minnie winning.  Listening to just the song on this web site you will be able to tell that Minnie was a better guitarist, not only better than Bill, but better than most of their contemporaries.  Minnie's finger-picking was easily on a level with Furry Lewis.

After the breakup of her marriage to Joe, Minnie went forward as a solo act.  The fact that she was starting to stand out as a solo act may well have precipitated the separation as Joe tended to be very jealous.  Minnie stayed in Chicago for the next 25 years or so, playing with Tampa Red, Sunnyland Slim, Little Walter and others.  Minnie and Little Son recorded many of her almost 200 titles together.  Down the road Minnie became one of the first blues artists to pick up an electric guitar [circa 1942] and regularly ran ahead of the crowd stylistically. 

After the divorce from Kansas Joe Minnie married another blues man, Ernest "Little Son Joe" Lawlar.  This would be her final marriage, lasting 23 years.  Minnie and Son usually recorded together and performed together or separately depending on their finances.  Little Son helped record many of her almost 200 titles together.  Their live sets began to take on some jazzier sounds and the electric guitars were in full force.  This was part of the collective milieu that was to give birth to the music of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf some years later.

 

The couple continued to make a good living throughout the forties, recording for the last time in 1949.  The guitar duets were less intricate than those with Kansas Joe, but the team had a prolific output.  All told, Minnie recorded over 200 sides during her 20 year recording career.  As the 1950s rolled in blues became virtually a dead issue as young artists both black and white began to cash in on the new phenomena of rock and roll.  Rock and Roll clearly was a sanitized version of what was already being played in Chicago and New Orleans among other places, but it tapped a large white audience with money.  The recording companies lost interest in the blues.  Ironically the blues were reborn due to the devotion of a large group of young British musicians in the mid-60s.

By the mid-50s Minnie and Little Son Joe were no longer in demand.  In 1957 Minnie suffered a heart attack / stroke that incapacitated her for life.  Son Joe also became ill around this time.  The couple returned to Memphis to be cared for by Minnie's sister Daisy.  Joe passed away in 1962.  After that Minnie was confined to a nursing home for the rest of her life.  Her last 16 years on Earth were spent in an incapacitated state.  Forgotten by many, she was visited by those who did remember.  She lived long enough to see her name resurrected in the 60s blues revival.

Minnie died peacefully on August 6, 1973.  She was one of the first twenty performers elected to the Hall of Fame at the first W.C. Handy awards in 1980.  Time has been kind to her music and she is more popular today than any of her female contemporaries.

 

During Minnie's career she was often compared to Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, but such a comparison is dubious as the styles have nothing in common.  In the earliest blues recordings women performed vocals only and then usually with larger combos, not with a solo guitar.  Memphis Minnie not only played the guitar “like a man“ she also delivered guttural vocals that refused to bow to femininity. Throughout the financially troubled 30s Minnie and friends continued to make a good living while the rest of the nation dealt with poverty and high unemployment.  Although Minnie is usually mentioned as a very successful “female” blues performer, the reality was that Minnie could pick guitar in a way that few would ever challenge.  While her vocals were rough and unrefined, so were the vocals of her contemporaries.