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Memphis Minnie McCoy (June 3, 1897–August 6, 1973) was an American Blues musician.

Contents 1 Career 2 Legacy 3 Songs 4 Notes 5 External links

Born Lizzie Douglas in Algiers, Louisiana, she was one of the most influential and pioneering female blues musicians and guitarists of all time. Minnie recorded for forty years, virtually unheard of for any woman in show business at the time, and possibly unique among female blues artists. A flamboyant character who wore bracelets made of silver dollars, she was the biggest female blues singer from the early Depression years through World War II. One of the first blues artists to take up the electric guitar, in 1942, she combined her Louisiana-country roots with Memphis-blues to produce her unique country-blues sound; along with Big Bill Broonzy and Tampa Red, she took country blues into electric urban blues, paving the highway for giants like Muddy Waters, Little Walter, and Jimmy Rogers to travel from the small towns of the south to the big cities of the north. She was married three times, and each husband was an accomplished blues guitarist: Joe McCoy (a.k.a. "Kansas Joe") later of the Harlem Hamfats, Casey Bill Weldon of the Memphis Jug Band, and Ernest Lawlers.^[1]

After learning to play guitar and banjo as a child, at the age of thirteen she ran away from home to Memphis, Tennessee, playing guitar in nightclubs and on the street as Lizzie "Kid" Douglas. The next year, she joined the Ringling Brothers circus. Her second marriage and recording debut came in 1929, both with Kansas Joe McCoy, when a Columbia Records talent scout heard them playing in a Beale Street barbershop in their distinctive "Memphis style", and their song "Bumble Bee" became a hit. In the 1930s she moved to Chicago, Illinois with Joe. She and McCoy broke up in 1935 and by 1939 she was with Little Son Joe, with whom she recorded nearly 200 records. In the 1940s she formed a touring Vaudeville company. From the 1950s on, however, public interest in her music declined and in 1957 she and Little Son Joe returned to Memphis. In 1961, Joe died and Minnie suffered a stroke which forced her to spend the rest of her life in nursing homes until she died in 1973.^[2]

Luckily, she was able to see her reputation revived in the 1960s as part of the general revival of interest in the blues. In 1980, Memphis Minnie was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame.^[3]

"When The Levee Breaks", a 1929 Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy song, was later covered (with slightly altered lyrics and a different melody) by Led Zeppelin and released in 1971 on (Zeppelin's fourth album).

Other songs by Memphis Minnie include: "Bumble Bee Blues", "Hoodoo Lady", "I'm Gonna Bake My Biscuit" and "I Want Something For You".

1. ^ Memphis Minni3. allmusic. Retrieved on 2006-10-23.
2. ^ Memphis Minnie. cr.nps.gov. Retrieved on 2006-10-23.
3. ^ 1980 Hall of Fame Inductees. The Blues Foundation. Retrieved on 2006-10-23.

• Listen to "When the Levee Breaks" at the "Internet Archive" (archive.org)
• Delta Blues Bio and Samples of "Bumble Bee Blues" and "Soo Cow Soo"