Includes bibliographical references (pages 203-207).
Contents:
Mothering the blues -- The Black South matters -- Sisters of the dirty blues -- White boy magic and the making of genre -- Grown little girls, tomboy women, and Black radio -- Don't ask me no more about Elvis -- California love/California dreamin' -- Willie Mae inna England -- Your blues ain't like mine -- Mixtapes, white biographers, and Black blues people -- Saved by the Amazing grace of Mahalia Jackson -- A jailed Sassy mama -- The '80s Blackness of Willie Mae's blues -- Epilogue.
Summary:
"Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton is best-known for two songs covered by white rock 'n' roll stars (Elvis Presley, "Hound Dog"; Janis Joplin, "Ball 'n' Chain") but she is unquestionably one of the great blueswomen of her generation. She embodies some of the clichés of the blues, too: Born in the South, raised in the church, appropriated by white performers, hard drinking, relatively early death, big nickname, buried in an indigent's grave. Lynnée Denise's Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters pushes past the stereotype to explore what she means to a young, Black, queer DJ of today who considers her an important musical "ancestor in my line of work." The chapters in this book are thematic, but there's a chronology underlying them that keeps readers oriented. The first chapter, for instance, works with a concept of "mothering," and covers Thornton's upbringing. Subsequent chapters explore how Thornton was shaped by growing up in the Black belt of Alabama, how her discography is evidence of her artistic range, how her touring (and relocating to Houston and Los Angeles) created musical migrations, how her musical collaborators shaped her and how she shaped them, Alice Walker's short story "1955," (which imagines Thornton and Elvis Presley meeting one another), how her success on the chitlin' circuit undermines the perception of that space as anti-queer, her on-stage improvisation as key to her lyricism, her gospel album, and her legacy"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.