Big Mama Thornton was born 88 years ago today. Thornton was rhythm and blues singer and songwriter. She was the first to record Leiber and Stollers Hound Dog in 1952, which became her biggest hit. It spent seven weeks at number one on the Billboard R&B charts in 1953 and sold almost two million copies. However, her success was overshadowed three years later, when Elvis Presley recorded his more popular rendition of Hound Dog. Similarly, Thorntons Ball n Chain, had a bigger impact when performed and recorded by Janis Joplin in the late 1960s. Thornton was born in Ariton, Alabama. Her introduction to music started in a Baptist church, where her father was a minister and her mother a church singer. She and her six siblings began to sing at very early ages. Thornton left Montgomery at age 14 in 1941, following her mothers death. She joined Sammy Greens Georgia-based Hot Harlem Revue. Her seven-year tenure with them, which included touring the South, gave her valuable singing and stage experience. In 1948, she settled in Houston, Texas, where she hoped to further her career as a singer. She was also a self-taught drummer and harmonica player, and frequently played each instrument onstage. In Houston, her career began to take off. She signed a recording contract with Peacock Records in 1951 and performed at the Apollo Theater in 1952. Also in 1952, she recorded Hound Dog while working with another Peacock artist, Johnny Otis. Songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were present at the recording, with Leiber singing the song in the style they had envisioned. The record was produced by Otis, and went to number one on the R&B chart. Although the record made her a star, she saw little of the profits. In 1954, Thornton was one of the eyewitnesses to the accidental self-inflicted handgun death of blues singer Johnny Ace. She continued to record for Peacock until 1957 and performed with R&B package tours with Junior Parker and Esther Phillips. In 1965, she toured with the American Folk Blues Festival package in Europe. While in England that year, she recorded her first album for Arhoolie, titled Big Mama Thornton — In Europe. It featured backing by blues veterans Buddy Guy (guitar), Fred Below (drums), Eddie Boyd (keyboards), Jimmy Lee Robinson (bass) and Walter Shakey Horton (harmonica), except for three songs on which Fred McDowell provided acoustic slide guitar. In 1966, Thornton recorded her second album for Arhoolie titled Big Mama Thornton with the Muddy Waters Blues Band – 1966, with Muddy Waters (guitar), Sammy Lawhorn (guitar), James Cotton (harmonica), Otis Spann (piano), Luther Johnson (bass guitar) and Francis Clay (drums). She performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1966 and 1968. Her last album for Arhoolie, Ball n Chain, was released in 1968. It was made up of tracks from her two previous albums, plus her composition Ball and Chain and the standard Wade in the Water. In 1979, she performed at the San Francisco Blues Festival and the Newport Jazz Festival in 1980. Thornton continued to work the blues festival circuit until her death of a heart attack in Los Angeles on July 25, 1984, at age 57. In 1984, Thornton was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. In addition to Ball n Chain and They Call Me Big Mama, Thornton wrote twenty other blues songs. Her Ball n Chain is included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame list of the 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.” The first biography about Big Mama Thornton will be published in 2014. Here, Thornton performs “You Ain’t Nothing But a Hound Dog.”
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 10:13:39 +0000
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