Memphis Minnie - Blues Musician (b. Lizzie Douglas - Algiers, Louisiana - June 3, 1897 - d. Memphis, Tennessee - August 6, 1973)

Memphis Minnie was one of the most influential and pioneering female blues musicians and guitarists of all time. She recorded for forty years, virtually unheard of for any woman in show business at the time, and possibly unique among female blues artists. She married three times to musicians Joe McCoy(aka Kansas Joe), Casey Bill Weldon and Ernest Lawlers(aka Little Son Joe).

After learning to play guitar and banjo as a child, at the age of 13 she ran away from home to Memphis. Soon after she joined the circus. She combined her Louisiana-country roots with Memphis-blues to produce her unique country-blues sound. Her recording debut came with Kansas Joe, and Columbia Records, in 1929, and their song "Bumble Bee" was a hit. In the 1930's she moved to Chicago with Joe. Her and Joe broke up in 1935, and by 1939 she was with Little Son Joe. In the 1940's she formed a touring "Vaudeville" company. Ill health forced her to spend the rest of her life from the late 1950's, until 1973, in nursing homes back in Memphis.

In 1980 she was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame.

Songs:

"When The Levee Breaks", a 1929 Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe song, was later covered by Led Zeppelin and released in 1971 on Zeppelin's "untitled" fourth (aka ZOSO, or four symbols) album.

Other songs: "Bumble Bee", "Hoodoo Lady" and "I Want Something For You"

External Link:

• Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame (http://www.blues.org/halloffame/)

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