Dear John, I saw this article and was intrigued by the fact that a female picker was a headliner so long ago. And, apparently she was quite good. Read on. Flagstaff is this weekend. This year's two-day event is chock full of biggies. Get on out and get on up to the cool climes of Flag. Lots of early interest in this year's Showdown. Prelims are Sept. 22 at the RR so get to work y'all. See you in Flagstaff y'all. Have a week!! And hug somebody. Sincerely, Jim Crawford - PBS
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by Del Rey
Guitar Queen. Hoodoo Lady. Master finger-style guitar player. Elizabeth "Kid" Douglas, known as Memphis Minnie was an intricate guitarist, an astute songwriter and a stylistic innovator. Her work (over 200 recordings) leads the way through the development of blues guitar playing, starting with her first recordings in 1929. 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? are repertoire perennials. A full-length biography, "Woman With Guitar: Memphis Minnie's Blues" by Paul and Beth Garon was published by DaCapo press in 1998 with a 2nd edition in 2014. Yet she remains comparatively unknown and under-studied in relation to her influence and importance to the development of blues music and guitar playing. Why has this musician , with her enormous body of recordings, who was well-loved by the Black blues audiences of the '30s and '40s been comparatively ignored by later, whiter audiences?Perhaps it's because Memphis Minnie doesn't fit the myth of the young, tragic, haunted blues man and she is too complex of a character to be easily marketed. She shaped a life very different from the limited possibilities offered to the women of her time. She lived a long life, was at her best in middle age, and would spit tobacco wearing a chiffon ball gown. Memphis Minnie's music remained popular over two decades because it was lyrically and instrumentally in tune with the lives of Black Americans. 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.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. Musically there were three basic phases to her style: the duet years with Kansas Joe, the "Melrose" band sound of the late thirties and early forties, and her later electric playing. She was always a finger picker, and played in Spanish (DGDGBD) and standard tunings, often using a capo. For guitar players, the first part of her career is definitely the most inspiring, as her inventive variations make masterpieces of tunes like "When The Levee Breaks"(1930) or "Let's Go To Town"(1931). In terms of her influence on the development of blues, she was an important player in the Chicago clubs during the '40s when musicians like Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rodgers and Johnny Shines, were coming up.As the realities of boom and bust economics became universal after the stock market crash of 1929, record companies began to seek out rural, guitar based music. Perhaps it was cheaper to record a country boy's guitar than an established vaudeville professional. 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. It is difficult to tell whether audiences demanded different music, or if they bought what was promoted and available. In any case, in 1929 Elizabeth Douglas, professionally known as Memphis Minnie, made her debut on record.Memphis Minnie (known to her family as "Kid") was born June 3, 1897, in Algiers Louisiana, the oldest of 13 brothers and sisters. She grew up in Walls Mississippi, about 20 miles from Memphis on Route 61, in a time before rural electrification and national media created a mass culture. 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. She got her first guitar at age ten or 11. The wretchedness of hitting the fields at dawn led some to try life with "the starvation box", as Roosevelt Sykes called the guitar. A musicians' life was an escape from endless labor, looked on with both admiration and resentment by the field hands and workers in the audience. 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. Memphis Minnie was never interested in physical labor and she began to play on the streets of Memphis and the towns surrounding Walls soon after getting her first guitar.In 1907 a blues musician played in all kinds of places: house parties, barrel houses, work camps, traveling shows. It's hard to imagine how prevalent live music was before the advent of consumer electronics. Anywhere you hear canned music now would probably have had a live musician-well, maybe not elevators. Sometimes a blues musician got paid with an apple or a can of sardines, sometimes she made as much as a hundred dollars. The traveling musician was often a lonely stranger, an outsider who might not know the local situation, and musicians often teamed up. One of Memphis Minnie's first musical partnerships was with Willie Brown, who is is better known for his association with Charlie Patton. Brown provided the solid rhythm and bass lines she seemed to require from all her men. She and Brown began playing together around 1915 in the resort town of Bedford Mississippi, where tourists could take a ferryboat trip around nearby Lake Cormorant. Minnie and Brown would get aboard and entertain the primarily white pleasure seekers, once debarking at Biggs Arkansas with $119 in tips. They mixed blues with pop tunes, her favorite cover being "What Makes You Do Me Like You Do Do Do". She also played for dances and store promotions. Minnie is rumored to have joined a Ringling Bros. circus in Clarksdale around 1917. There were traveling shows of all kinds, from lowdown to grand, but they all included comedy, dancers and musicians of every type from jug bands to elegant pianists. Associating with circus and vaudeville performers must have been a step up for a street musician, and probably helped Minnie make her music more of an act.Minnie settled Memphis in the early '20s. Beale Street was at this time an important bit of pavement, a place where segregation forced dentists and church ladies to mix with gamblers and whores, creating quite a lively atmosphere.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.By 1929, Minnie had married another guitar-player, Joe McCoy, who was a good singer and guitarist, but reputedly a jealous fellow. One photo of the two has Minnie in an florid, drop-waisted day dress, with straightened flapper hair, looking distinctly unsteady on her feet as she grabs hold of a grim-faced Joe's padded shoulder. They were playing together in a Beale street barbershop when a scout from Columbia offered to record them in New York. Their first session was on June 18, 1929, two weeks after Minnie's 32nd birthday. The silly yet haunting "Bumble Bee Blues" became the popular song from that session- so popular that Minnie recorded several different versions of it for different labels. Columbia was responsible for bestowing their geographical monikers: Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe. Minnie used the name both publicly and privately, although her family still called her Kid.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.Minnie's fame began to spread northward by word of mouth and records. Apparently people in Chicago, who had never actually seen her play, were skeptical-so far no women instrumentalists had become prominent on the tough country blues circuit, although some (like guitarist Mattie Delaney), made a brief, tantalizing appearance, then disappeared. Minnie's arrival in Chicago precipitated a showdown with the reigning King, Big Bill Broonzy. In 1933, when Big Bill Broonzy was very popular in Chicago, a blues contest between him and Memphis Minnie took place in a night club. As Broonzy tells the story, in his autobiography Big Bill Blues, a jury of fellow musicians awarded Minnie the prize of a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of gin for her performance of "Chauffeur Blues" and "Looking the World Over". Bill grabbed half the prize (the bottle of whiskey) and took it off to drink under a table. Two of the judges, John Estes and Richard Jones hoisted the victorious Minnie on their shoulders while Kansas Joe remarked sourly "Put her down. She can walk". Broonzy and Minnie became good friends, and played together locally and on the road.In 1939 she married Ernest "Little Son Joe" Lawlars, a Memphis based guitarist who was her partner for the next 23 years. Her recordings with Son Joe are in duet style, with piano, bass or drums added on some sessions. Although Son's playing has an impelling pulse and solidness their instrumental interplay is less intricate than what Minnie and Kansas Joe recorded. 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. In the same session Son Joe sang "Black Rat Swing", and sounded so much like Minnie he must have borrowed her chewing tobacco. Minnie's fantastically vituperative vocal delivery on some songs may be due in part to having a cheek full of Copenhagen. She was known to spit mid-song without losing a beat.In 1957 Minnie had an incapacitating heart attack, and Son Joe became too ill to perform. They returned to Memphis where Minnie's sister Daisy took care of them. After Son Joe's death in 1962 Minnie lived in a nursing home until she died on August 6,1973, at the age of 76. |
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| OUT & ABOUT Tuesday, June 4 Papa D & The Union Thugs, 7:30, Musicians Union Hall, Phoenix Eric Ramsey, 7:30 p.m., Janey's, Cave Creek Wed., June 5 Carvin Jones, 7 p.m., McKenzie's, Phoenix Paris James, 7 p.m., AZ BBQ Shack, Scottsdale Hans Olson, 7 p.m., Time Out Lounge, Tempe Chuck Hall, 6 p.m., Corrado's, Carefree Thur., June 6 Sugar Thieves Duo, 6 p.m., Culinary Dropout, Gilbert Leon J, 5 p.m., Vinny's, Peoria Carvin Jones, 7:30 p.m., The Lounge, Phoenix Paris James, 7 p.m., St. Armand Kitchen & Cocktails, Chandler Eric Ramsey Hosts OPEN MIC, 6 p.m., Fatso's Pizza, Phoenix Hans Olson EVERY THURSDAY, 6 p.m., Handlebar, Apache Junction Arizona Blues Project, 8 p.m., Harold's, Cave Creek Friday, June 7 Flagstaff Blues & Brews Festival, 3 p.m., Continental Golf Course, Flagstaff (See Poster) Sugar Thieves, 7:30 p.m., Janey's, Cave Creek Ramsey/Roberson, 8 p.m., XTreme Bean, Tempe BluZone, 8:30, The Bench, Tempe Paris James, 6:30 p.m., Scratch Pub, Mesa Tommy Dukes/Roger Smith, 6 p.m., Charly's, Flagstaff Sat., June 8 Soul Power Band, 9 p.m., Rhythm Room, Phoenix Smokestack Lightning, 6 p.m., Desert Eagle Brewery, Mesa JC & The Rockers, 8 p.m., Fibber Magee's, Chandler Eric Ramsey, 7 p.m., Desert Eagle Brewery, Mesa Dry Heat Blues Band, 8 p.m., MacKenzie's Midtown Tavern, Phoenix Blues Review Band, 6:30 p.m., Stone & Barrel, Sun Lakes Carvin Jones, 2 p.m., The Roadhouse, Cave Creek BluZone, 1 p.m., Crown King Saloon, Crown King Paris James, 6:30 p.m., D'Vine Wine, Mesa Sunday, June 9 Big Daddy D & The Dynamites, 5 p.m., 10 - 12 Lounge, Clarkdale Mike Eldred, 3 p.m., The Vig, Scottsdale True Flavor Blues, NOON , Copper Star, Phoenix Mon., June 10 |
Jams Sunday Rocket 88s JAM, 4 p.m., Chopper John's, Phoenix Bourbon Jack's JAM w/Kody Herring, 6 p.m., Chandler Sir Harrison, JAM every other Sunday, The Windsock, Prescott MONDAY Bam Bam & Badness Open JAM, 9 p.m., Char's, Phoenix Weatherford Hotel JAM, 6:30 p.m., Flagstaff TUESDAY OPEN JAM Hosted by Jilly Bean & The Flipside Blues Band, 7 p.m., Steel Horse Saloon, Phoenix JAM Sir Harrison, 9 p.m., Char's, Phoenix Gypsy's Bluesday Night JAM, 7 p.m. Pho Cao, Tempe Tailgaters JAM, 7 p.m., Glendale WEDNESDAY Rocket 88s, JAM, 6 p.m., The Last Stop (Old Hideaway West), Phoenix Tool Shed JAM Party, 6 p.m. Gabby's, Mesa THURSDAY Tool Shed JAM Party, 7 p.m., Steel Horse Saloon, Phoenix Jolie's Place JAM w/Adrenaline, 9 p.m., Chandler JAM Hosted by The Scott O'Neal Band. Every other Thursday, Windsock, Prescott Friday Saturday Bumpin' Bud's JAM 2nd & 4th Saturdays JAM, 6 p.m., Marc's Sports Grill |
GOT BLUES? If you are a Blues musician, a group, or a club that features Blues music, and would like to be listed, please send your info to info@phoenixblues.org and we'll be happy to list your event in our weekly Out & About section of the newsletter |
Moved? Changed email addresses? Please let us know of any changes in your address, email, or phone number so we can keep you informed about the Blues community in Arizona. Email us at: info@phoenixblues.org or write to: Phoenix Blues Society P.O. Box 36874 Phoenix, Arizona 85067 |
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