The life and music of Memphis Minnie

[@RgTripleC]

The speaker says she was forgotten because she wasn't a tragic figure. She lived on the streets from age 11 or 12. She was forced into sex work to survive. She started getting sick in the late forties with asthma. By about 1955 both she and her husband Little Son Joe were too frail to perform anymore. They moved back to Memphis. They had a regular gig once a week, but their ability to make a living was gone. They lost everything house, cars, belongings. They lived in a one-room apartment and their only income was welfare. The poverty-stricken couple had to move into Minnie's sister's spare room. Minnie had a stroke the same year Joe died and was paralyzed for the rest of her life. She live the last 13 years of her life confined to a wheelchair in a nursing home. Her life was pretty tragic .

[@IallaSharp]

Damnnnn

[@claytonmccoy8849]

It was indeed tragic, but it should be noted that she was in her twenties when she resorted to sex work. You frame it in such a way that it sounds like she did that at age 12. "In 1910, at the age of 13, she ran away from home to live on Beale Street, in Memphis. She played on street corners for most of her teenage years, occasionally returning to her family's farm when she ran out of money.[5] Her sidewalk performances led to a tour of the South with the Ringling Brothers Circus from 1916 to 1920.[6] She then went back to Beale Street, with its thriving blues scene, and made her living by playing guitar and singing, supplementing her income with sex work (at that time, it was not uncommon for female performers to turn to sex work out of financial need).[7]" so my understanding is that she was 23 when she resorted to prostitution.

[@benw-king3380]

​@@claytonmccoy8849 May I play Devil's advocate? Life for the average black person in the 20s and 30s was just plain tough. That's the Long and short of it. I thought that on the whole this was a great talk - concerning a really talented black woman. I think the point about 'the low down bluesman criteria' is not entirely without merit. My thoughts are that this is just as much about that old 'fly in the ointment' as anything else...sexism. Whether that is intentional or not is another matter, but people will talk about Freddie King, Muddy, SRV et al until the cows come home but they rarely mention: Bessie Smith, Big Mamma Thornton, Victoria Spivey, Elizabeth Cotton, Ma Rainey, Mama Yancey? I'm suggesting that this may also be a kind of casual sexism. Men wanging their way through a 24 bar guitar solo, or moaning the blues about Hell Hounds on their trail just seems to be a more easily consumed form of the music; odd really when you consider what a superb and dynamic guitar player Sister Rosetta Tharpe was Long before Hendrix. Them's could be the breaks. But it's up to a better informed and more open minded generation of listeners to both listen to, and remind people that there were some fantastic ladies playing this form of music. I don't really know the extent to which Zeppelin reminded people that Memphis Minnie wrote and recorded 'When The Levee Breaks.' But when you consider where that song ranks in their backcatalog, they really should have been shouting it from the rooftops.

[@BrendaBoykin-qz5dj]

Thank you.⭐🌹😎🌹⭐

[@markmoretzfishing]

Wow!!!! Great video now I’m a Minnie fan for ever👍

[@benw-king3380]

That was a very considered, thought provoking talk. Roger Hahn mentioned Elijah Wald's book, a wonderful treatise on Robert Johnson's music and the culture from which it evolved. I think it is true to say that Johnson's music - having grown in stature exponentially as a result of many white musicians from the 60s citing him as a major influence - has overshadowed many of his contemporaries, particularly those musicians that probably influenced him. That said, it was the influence that his music exerted on those 60s rock and blues artistes that created enormous and lasting interest in the Blues. Mr Hahn's appeal is righteous. I hope it's heard. It's a great shame that this period of music isn't better known, because it's incredibly vibrant - whether it is Cajun, Jazz, Delta Blues, Oldtime regional music or Piedmont - because it is all so incredibly varied; Saturday night music I'd call it; and contained therein lies the foundations of 'Americana.'

[@waynesworld7804]

I love Bessie Smith and Memphis Minnie but they should not be compared in the sense that Smith was by and large a singer. And what a voice. Minnie was the first 'woman with guitar' to take on the boys like Johnson and Broonzy. It is documented that Minnie and Big Bill had a guitar play off and Minnie won that. Minnie and Bessie both great in their own right but in different ways.

[@georgebaird7180]

Still can’t understand why there is no live footage of Memphis

[@RgTripleC]

Because she was retired by the time TV was becoming widespread. There isn't live footage of most of her contemporaries. Unless they were in movies or film shorts.

[@jackignatius]

Her guitar skills and influence on Muddy Waters approach to electric guitar should not be underestimated, in my opinion.

[@MARLONdaman]

Her life was tragic because being black in the South trying to survive was tragic enough!

[@zahabug4089]

How are you going to lecture people on what they don’t pay attention to... when black people are displaced on purpose... its not a matter of them not paying attention.

[@madmozelletc]

I was told by one of my guitar teachers she "didn't matter" as far as guitar history was concerned.

[@djtdub1]

j zell This guitar teacher of yours may know how to play a guitar but knows nothing about Blues history.

[@jasonr3574]

You should find a better teacher.

[@georgebaird7180]

Ask your music teacher to have a good listen to Memphis and get his ears cleaned out

[@jamiephillips620]

Look I love Memphis Minnie a lot but comparing her to Bessie (Queen of Blues) Smith is absurd. Bessie Smith birthed Modern day Blues, Rock & Roll, Soul and R & B. Furthermore, Bessie Smith was studied and admired by greats such as Ethel Waters, Mahalia Jackson, Billie Holiday and the Queen of Soul herself Aretha Franklin. No singer in the 20th century male or female had as much of an impact on music you her today be it Rock and Roll, Hard rock, R&B, Soul and yes even, Hip Hop as Bessie Smith.

[@walterweimer1333]

Jamie Phillips too much queens... If it ain't crude and rough it ain't blues at all

[@krismonger9004]

Memphis Minnie was a bad ass all on her own as one of the greats to ever pick up a guitar!