June Is Black Music Month: Neosoulville Celebrates The Soulful Women of Memphis | by Chandra Kamaria

Consider this, a city built on a bluff that played host to a swarm of rural Black newcomers. Poor and desperate, they came for better opportunities in a place that boasted of an active riverboat trade and owed much of its economic prosperity to ‘King Cotton’. In exchange, these people gave the city a musical expression composed of those heart-felt groans that only poverty and strife can evoke. Dubbed as the ‘blues’, its familiar chords and repetitive phrases filled the air on a street named after a forgotten military hero. Beale Street became the 1.8 mile stretch where God’s dark-skinned children clamored, prospering and doing all they could to make the most of a hard-won freedom. Their music comforted them; easing their pain because they could channel their anger, sorrow, hard luck, and lust through gritty, worldly, saucy lyrics that hovered over guitar picking, piano thumping melodies.

Over time, the crude edges of the blues were smoothed over but the grittiness of the music remained constant. The sound became more polished; even a bit sophisticated but it still held its own in uniqueness with its delivery and depth. Vocally, it rose and fell in octaves and gospel-tinged riffs became its signature. The rhythms blended with elements of jazz and this combination resulted in a funkier flavor; kinda like the smell of green onions. The life of the lyrics evolved from a raw statement embedded in your being through repetition to a full-fledged dialogue with verses, a bridge, and completed with a hook. Simply put, the blues gave birth to soul and both are synonymous with the name of Memphis. During this Black Music Month, Neosoulville salutes a city wrapped in a tumultuous history and the sound it created.

The Women of Memphis:

You know, it’s something about a woman doing her thang. Yes, her thang. Down south speech is necessary since we’re referencing southern queens. See, men do their thang using their minds while women do their thang using their hearts. Since blues and soul music are already expressions of emotional depth and deals with everything under the sun, being a woman only grants a special privilege to ‘tell it like it is’ cause she can see it and feel it. These women did just that; each of them was feminine enough to be vulnerable, yet strong enough to say what they meant….and mean what they said with no apologies.

Memphis Minnie, Blues Queen:

June 3rd would have marked the 111th birthday of Lizzie Douglas better known as ‘Memphis Minnie’. So, it’s only befitting, here at our Neosoulville offices, that we pay tribute to a woman who was one of the pioneers of the blues. With her sassy good looks and guitar, Memphis Minnie recorded for over forty years, a highly accomplished feat for a woman during that time, especially among blues musicians. Born in Algiers, Louisiana, Minnie and her family moved to Walls, Mississippi before she found her way to Memphis. By the age of thirteen, she began performing in nightclubs on the famed Beale Street as Lizzie ‘Kid’ Douglas and later, joined the Ringling Bros circus, touring the South and performing in tent shows during the 1920s. In 1929, success found her when she, along with her newly-wed husband, blues musician Kansas Joe McCoy performed in a Beale Street barbershop when a talent scout from Columbia Records heard them. The song ‘Bumble Bee’ became a blues hit and that begins the trailblazing history of Memphis Minnie.

During the 1930s, she and McCoy resided in Chicago, where they were instrumental in developing the Chicago blues scene. By 1935, her marriage and musical partnership with McCoy was over. But, that didn’t seem to stop Memphis Minnie as she married guitarist Ernest ‘Little Son Joe’ Lawlers in 1939. Continuing to record and perform over the next 20 years of her life, Minnie was a blues sensation with a host of hit recordings that spanned the 1940s. Her signature style was dubbed as ‘country blues’ perhaps for the southern twang prevalent in her gutsy vocal delivery. By the 1950s, Minnie had returned to Memphis and retired—the recording industry’s finicky interests had shifted to the burgeoning rock and roll genre. Lawlers died in 1961; shortly afterwards, Minnie became ill and spent the rest of her days in a nursing home before succumbing in August 1973. The woman who would “spit tobacco while wearing a chiffon gown” was inducted in the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame seven years after her death in 1980.
As I learn of her, the most remarkable thing about Memphis Minnie was the infamous pioneering ability that the city of Memphis embodies. Perhaps Minnie, along with several others, were the cultivators of such a spirit and through their efforts, they passed it on to the next generations. Even though she holds her own in the company of other blues women such as Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, and Big Mama Thornton, Memphis Minnie seems to surface only after intermittent periods of obscurity. Why? Perhaps it’s because her endearing city has forgotten all about her too. It almost seems as if Memphis is the quintessential birthplace of the ‘Next Big Thing’ that grows up, moves away, and forgets its roots.
Present day Memphis is in the process of reinventing itself; but I dare say before doing that, it should embrace its legacy first. So, during this Black Music Month, do yourself a favor and learn your musical history. In particular for Memphians, learn about your city and its shining stars, like Memphis Minnie. While writing this piece, Minnie is blaring through my earbuds. She is singing ‘Hoodoo Lady’, a song about, you guessed it, a root-working woman that Minnie pleads ‘don’t put that thang on me ‘cause I’m going back to Tennessee’. Indeed.