Memphis Minnie

Tracking down the best woman blues guitar hero can be problematic because woman blues singers seldom documented as guitarists and woman guitarists (such as for example Rosetta Tharpe and Sister O.M. Terrell) had been seldom documented playing blues. Excluding modern performers, the most known exception to the design was Memphis Minnie. Typically the most popular and prolific blueswoman beyond your vaudeville custom, she gained the respect of critics, the support of record-buying enthusiasts, as well as the unqualified compliment from the blues performers she caused throughout her lengthy profession. Despite her Southern root base and reputation, she was just as much a Chicago blues musician as anyone in her time. Big Costs Broonzy recalls her defeating both him and Tampa Crimson in a electric guitar contest and promises she was the very best woman guitarist he previously ever heard. Hard enough to withstand in a difficult business, she gained the respect of her peers with her solid musicianship and documented great blues over four years for Columbia, Vocalion, Bluebird, OKeh, Regal, Checker, and Work. She also demonstrated to have nearly as good flavor in musical husbands as music and suffered working relationships with guitarists Casey Costs Weldon, Joe McCoy, and Ernest Lawlars. Their electric guitar duets period the spectral range of African-American folk and well-known music, including spirituals, comic dialogs, and old-time dance items, but Memphis Minnie’s greatest work contains deep blues like “Moaning the Blues.” Greater than a great female blues guitarist and vocalist, Memphis Minnie keeps her personal against the very best blues performers of her period, and her function has unique resonance for today’s aspiring guitarists.