Post by Angela L. on Mar 19, 2009 16:09:44 GMT -6
Memphis Minnie, a renowned singer and songwriter and one of a few female stars who played guitar, is one of the latest performers to be honored posthumously with a Mississippi Blues Trail marker.
Her gravesite is at the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery in the small town of Walls, about two miles south of Memphis, Tenn.
Minnie, born Lizzie Kid Douglas, was one of the premier blues artists of the 1930s and '40s. She was known for her spirited, street-wise demeanor.
In the early 1900s while living with her parents in Tunica and DeSoto counties in northwest Mississippi, Minnie began performing with Delta blues guitarist Willie Brown and others.
Douglas acquired the name Memphis Minnie when she became a recording artist in 1929, as part of a duo with her guitar-playing husband, Kansas Joe McCoy. The couple's first recording session produced the classic song "When the Levee Breaks," later made famous by Led Zeppelin. The song has most recently been heard as a theme song for documentaries on Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans.
Minnie suffered a stroke and spent her final years unable to perform and living in a nursing home. She died at the age of 76 on Aug. 6, 1973.
Minnie's grave remained unmarked until the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund raised money for a tombstone in 1996.
I will be adding a longer article about Mississippi Minnie on the History & Legends page of our main website later this month...www.mississippi-spi.com
The Blues is a music form that began in the cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta, and is considered the only music original to the United States. The University of Mississippi Blues Archive in Oxford, contains the world's largest collection of Blues music.
Her gravesite is at the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery in the small town of Walls, about two miles south of Memphis, Tenn.
Minnie, born Lizzie Kid Douglas, was one of the premier blues artists of the 1930s and '40s. She was known for her spirited, street-wise demeanor.
In the early 1900s while living with her parents in Tunica and DeSoto counties in northwest Mississippi, Minnie began performing with Delta blues guitarist Willie Brown and others.
Douglas acquired the name Memphis Minnie when she became a recording artist in 1929, as part of a duo with her guitar-playing husband, Kansas Joe McCoy. The couple's first recording session produced the classic song "When the Levee Breaks," later made famous by Led Zeppelin. The song has most recently been heard as a theme song for documentaries on Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans.
Minnie suffered a stroke and spent her final years unable to perform and living in a nursing home. She died at the age of 76 on Aug. 6, 1973.
Minnie's grave remained unmarked until the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund raised money for a tombstone in 1996.
I will be adding a longer article about Mississippi Minnie on the History & Legends page of our main website later this month...www.mississippi-spi.com
The Blues is a music form that began in the cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta, and is considered the only music original to the United States. The University of Mississippi Blues Archive in Oxford, contains the world's largest collection of Blues music.