Black Music Sunday: Giving Big Mama Thornton her birthday props

[Brexiter]

Far too often, the role of Black women as part of the foundational cornerstones in American music—whether in blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, or rock and roll—gets either overlooked or underreported and under-researched. One of those women, whose musical performance and songwriting helped launch the careers of two major white artists—Elvis Presley and Janis Joplin—not only got virtually ignored, but also died broke and alone at the age of 57.

RELATED: Before Elvis and Janis there was Big Mama Thornton

Born Willie Mae Thornton in Alabama on Dec. 11, 1926, this woman became known in the music world as Big Mama Thornton. Had she lived, today would be Big Mama’s 96th birthday.

Ed Decker wrote Thornton’s bio for Musician Guide:

One of seven children of a minister in Alabama, Thornton sang in church choirs along with her mother as a child. She was forced to begin working at age 14 when her mother died, and got her first chance to sing in public at a saloon where she scrubbed floors after the regular singer quit her job one night. After joining Sammy Green's Hot Harlem Review of Atlanta, Georgia, in 1941, she hit the road on the blues circuit throughout the South. While on tour she was treated to live performances by blues legends such as Bessie Smith, Memphis Minnie, and Big Maceo.

After settling in Houston in 1948, Thornton met Junior Parker, Lightning Hopkins, Lowell Fulson, and Gatemouth Brown, all of whom influenced her style. Her first recording was released in Houston under the name Harlem Stars. Next she signed a contract with the Peacock label and headed to Los Angeles to appear with bandleader Johnny Otis, who was well known on the pop music scene at the time. His tour included famous performers such as Little Esther and Mel Walker. With the Otis band on the Peacock label, Thornton recorded some 30 songs in the early 1950s that were "remarkable for the vocal presence and total cohesiveness," according to Gerard Herzhaft in the Encyclopedia of Blues.

Thornton's big break came in 1953 when, according to Bob Shannon and John Javna in Behind the Hits, Johnny Otis asked composers Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller to write a song especially for Thornton. The song was "Hound Dog," and it climbed to number one on the R&B charts, making Thornton a national star. "They [Lieber and Stoller] were just a couple of kids then and they had this song written on a paper bag," Thornton told a columnist in New York City, claimed Stambler. "So I started to sing the words and join in some of my own. All that talkin' and hollerin'--that's my own." Three years later, the song became a monster hit for Elvis Presley, with an arrangement similar to the original. Thornton always felt that she was cheated out of the success she deserved from "Hound Dog." The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music noted that some people thought Thornton rather than Lieber and Stoller should have received credit for writing it. "I never got what I should have," she was quoted as saying by Stambler. "I got one check for $500 and I never seen another."

Here’s her 1952 recording of “Hound Dog,” released in 1953.

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The Library of Congress has this essay on “Hound Dog”:

“Hound Dog”—Big Mama Thornton (1953) Added to the National Registry: 2016 Essay by Michael Sporke (guest essay)*

Big Mama Thornton On 13 August 1952, Willie Mae Thornton, now better known as Big Mama Thornton, recorded, with Johnny Otis and his orchestra a song that would become her signature forever: “Hound Dog.” And it was just a few days after that that she had become “Big Mama Thornton.” That occurred when she performed with Otis at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. As she recalled years later in an interview with Ralph Gleason of the “San Francisco Chronicle”:

I played opposite Little Esther at the Johnny Otis show in 1952, and I didn’t have no record and I was singing the Dominos’ song “Have Mercy, Mercy, Baby,” and I stole the show! We played the Apollo in New York and that’s where they made their mistake. They put me on first. I wasn’t out there to put no one off stage. I was out there to get known and I did! I stopped the show. They had to put the curtain down. Little Esther never got on that first show. That’s when they put my name in lights and Mr. Shiffman, the manager, came backstage hollerin’ to Johnny Otis and poking me in the arms with his fingers (it was sore for a week). “You said you had a star and you got a star! You got to put her on to close the show!”

From that day on, she was called Big Mama Thornton.

I believe this live 1965 footage of Thornton performing “Hound Dog,” followed by “Down Home Shakedown,” comes from the DVD set The American Folk Blues Festival 1962-1966, recorded in 1965 for German TV.

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Also in 1965, we have music from her tour stop in England.

From the Smithsonian Folkways catalog:

In 1965, Arhoolie founder Chris Strachwitz recorded legendary R&B singer Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton in London, England. Big Mama was backed by a stellar blues band with Buddy Guy on guitar, Eddie Boyd on piano, and Fred Below on drums. Mississippi Fred McDowell on slide guitar and Walter Horton on harmonica sat in on several numbers. The result was one of the best albums ever recorded by Big Mama and includes two versions of her hit song “Hound Dog.” Other standout numbers are her versions of “Little Red Rooster” and “Chauffeur Blues.” The recording closes with a conversation between Big Mama and Strachwitz.

Give a listen to her rendition of the blues standard “Little Red Rooster.”

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Here’s Thornton’s interview with Chris Strachwitz, founder and president of Arhoolie Records. The full transcript is available on the Arhoolie Foundation website.

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This was the only recorded interview with Thornton I could find. I am frankly gobsmacked that that there has never been a biopic of her life and musical contributions. There was a Thornton role in this summer’s Elvis biopic, played by actress Shonka Dukureh, who died last July. In the film, Thornton becomes an accessory to Elvis, and not the central figure in her own story.


For an academic deep dive into Thornton and other Black female musicians, I recommend Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll, by cultural anthropologist Maureen Mahon.

African American women have played a pivotal part in rock and roll—from laying its foundations and singing chart-topping hits to influencing some of the genre's most iconic acts. Despite this, black women's importance to the music's history has been diminished by narratives of rock as a mostly white male enterprise. In Black Diamond Queens, Maureen Mahon draws on recordings, press coverage, archival materials, and interviews to document the history of African American women in rock and roll between the 1950s and the 1980s. Mahon details the musical contributions and cultural impact of Big Mama Thornton, LaVern Baker, Betty Davis, Tina Turner, Merry Clayton, Labelle, the Shirelles, and others, demonstrating how dominant views of gender, race, sexuality, and genre affected their careers. By uncovering this hidden history of black women in rock and roll, Mahon reveals a powerful sonic legacy that continues to reverberate into the twenty-first century.

RELATED: Ladies don't just sing the blues. They play them, too

Mahon also authored this in-depth article on Thornton for: Women & Music (Vol. 15) 2011, University of Nebraska Press: “Listening for Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton's voice: the sound of race and gender transgressions in rock and roll.”

Here’s her background on “Hound Dog,” which was recorded in 1952, but not released until the following year.

Thornton recalled that she learned her record was in circulation on her way to a performance in Dayton, Ohio.

I was going to the theater and I just turned the

radio on in the car and the man said, "Here's

a record that's going nationwide: 'Hound Dog'

by Willie Mae Thornton." I said, "That's me!"

[laughs] I hadn't heard the record in so long. So

when we get to the theater they was blasting it.

You could hear it from the theater, from the loudspeaker.

They were just playing "Hound Dog"

all over the theater. So I goes up in the operating

room, I say, "Do you mind playing that again?"

'Cause I hadn't heard the record in so long I forgot

the words myself. So I stood there while he

was playing it, listening to it. So that evening I

sang it on the show, and everybody went for it.

"Hound Dog" just took off like a jet. (30)

"Hound Dog" made such an immediate splash in Houston, Thornton's adopted hometown, that a local haberdasher designed "Hound Dog" shirts with floppy-eared collars. (31) The national R&B press was also enthusiastic. Billboard named "Hound Dog" a "New Record to Watch," and its reviewers gave it a rating in the excellent range, noting, "Thrush's vocal is outstanding, and the backing is infectious. This one is mighty potent and could bust thru quickly." (32) Cash Box named "Hound Dog" the "Rhythm 'N' Blues Sleeper of the Week" and observed, "Willie Mae Thornton gives a frenzied performance ... [e]asy when she should be easy, and driving when she has to bang it home." (33) "Hound Dog" went to number one on Billboard's R&B chart at the end of March and stayed there for seven weeks. R&B historian James Salem observes, "Hound Dog.... not only made Big Mama famous in the national blues community but established Peacock Records as a major independent label in black secular music." (34)

Mahon points out a difference between Thornton’s attitude about Presley and Janis Joplin.

Joplin's visibility as rock's first female superstar spilled over to Thornton. Higher-profile bookings and a contract with Mercury Records, a major label, resulted from being recognized as the woman who wrote "Ball and Chain." (58) Joplin invited Thornton to open for her on a couple of dates, something Presley never did. Both Joplin and Presley recorded songs originated by Thornton, but only Joplin shared the success. Consequently, Thornton spoke highly of Joplin, who had asked if she could record Thornton's song and who publicly acknowledged her. Discussing Joplin in 1972, Thornton said, "I gave her the right and the permission to make 'Ball and Chain.' And she always was my idol before she passed away ... and I thank her for helping me. I'll always go along the line with that." (59) From the 1960s on, "Ball and Chain" was a crowd-pleasing part of Big Mama's repertoire. Thornton would typically mention Joplin as she introduced the song, calling her "the late and great Janis Joplin" on some occasions. (60) Always, she claimed the song as her own, noting that she wrote it and would be singing it "in my own way, the way I wrote it." According to Strachwitz, "[Thornton] was really proud of 'Ball and Chain.' It was just one of those things that came to her, you know, because of her love and problems and then [Joplin] made it into a hit and [Thornton] appreciated Janis helping her get gigs." (61) The creation of the song, ownership of the song, and financial and social recognition of that ownership were all important to Thornton.

Thornton makes it very clear who wrote “Ball and Chain” in this live performance with Buddy Guy at WBGH.

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While searching for videos for this story, I stumbled across this The Daily Show “Shafted” segment on Big Mama, “Hound Dog,” and Elvis.

Somehow I missed this one at the time, so I figured some of y’all may have never seen it, either.

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Back to serious music listening: To get a sense of Thornton on the road with other blues greats, a must-watch is this 1971 concert with Big Mama Thornton, Muddy Waters, Big Joe Turner, and George "Harmonica" Smith at the University of Oregon. The show opens with her walking through a cheering crowd, playing the harmonica.

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I’ll close with Big Mama’s rendition of “Oh Happy Day,” since I’m still on an elation wave about recent events in Georgia. Namely, the reelection of Rev. Sen. Raphael Warnock—and since a lot of the credit for that victory goes to the hard work that was done by grassroots groups headed by Black women, I’m dedicating this gospel song from a powerhouse Black woman to all of them, and to everyone else who helped make it happen.

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Please join me in the comments to continue the birthday celebration of Big Mama’s music!