Queen of Blues

Memphis Minnie | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 7, 1997)
• Original Release Date: October 7, 1997
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B000002AI4
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #260,680 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Memphis Minnie Rocks!, December 21, 2000

By 

Ibochild (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Queen of Blues (Audio CD)

"Queen of the blues?," you may ask. After you check out this CD, you'll understand why. There were many outstanding female blues vocalists of the first half of the 20th Century, but Minnie not only sang, she was also an accomplished guitarist and wrote many of her songs.

This is evidenced by "When the Levee Breaks," which starts off this eighteen track set. Minnie co-wrote and plays guitar on the song, but the lead vocals are by her husband, co-writer "Kansas" Joe McCoy. It's the same song that was later recorded by Led Zeppelin on their fourth album (the same one that included "Stairway to Heaven"). It also seems to be Kansas Joe singing on "Joliet Bound," which immediately follows the first track.

Vocally, it's pretty much Minnie throughout the rest of the CD, although sometimes it's hard to tell because of her husky singing voice. This is an area where the liner notes could really have been helpful, but this is mere nit-picking.

In addition to those songs mentioned, other stand out cuts are "New Orleans Stop Time," "Call the Fire Wagon," and the unabashedly sexual, "I'd Rather See Him Dead." Also of note are "He's in the Ring" and "Joe Louis Strut," which are both tributes to the former heavyweight champion.

Memphis Minnie is the real thing. She's raw, bold and can play some mean guitar. Her playing ranges from "gut bucket" (a la Robert Johnson) to a more "rocking" style, later popularized by the likes of Chuck Berry (who is rumored to have recorded a jam session with her). Simply put, this CD should be a part of any comphrensive blues collection.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential Blues, fun blues, teaching blues. Minnie's Blues, August 23, 2005

By 

Tony Thomas (SUNNY ISLES BEACH, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Queen of Blues (Audio CD)

Minnie seems to be overlooked today. Yet, she was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1930s and 1940s. Her style and vigor and the excellence of both her singing, her guitar playing, and the lyrics of her songs, set her apart and above other blues singers.

Now, Minnie doesn't sing with the existential angst and bitter pain that blues singers adored by white post folk "blues fans" adore. That is because Minnie sings the real blues that real Black people in the Delta and in Tennessee, and then all over the country wanted. It is blues for Saturday night to juke and dance and party and drink and make love and lose love and maybe to listen to Sunday afternoon to remind you when the hangover leaves, or you realized who you ended up with last night.

She plays and sings smiling blues, records that were supposed to make you happy enough to dance. Everytime I hear her, I am really struck by how her guitar playing really is a bridge between the old acoustic styles and the modern styles that would be identified with post-war electric blues. I am also struck with how much sexy fun records were back in her day, and what a hot momma Minnie must have been to see and to hear and to touch.

4.0 out of 5 stars A Giant Of A Woman In A Man's World, July 30, 2007

By 

AvidOldiesCollector (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Queen of Blues (Audio CD)

Lizzie Douglas was born in Algiers, Louisiana on June 3, 1897 and at the age of 7 moved from a rural farm to Walls in the northern portion of Mississippi. On her 8th birthday she was given her first guitar by her father and took to the instrument almost immediately, soon playing at local functions as "Kid" Douglas.

At a very young age she ran away from home, playing for change at what is now W.C. Handy Park on Beale Street in Memphis [then Church's Park], and sometime in the late 1910's or early 1920s she latched onto the stage name Memphis Minnie while playing tent shows with the Ringling Brothers Circus.

Late in the 1920s jug bands began springing up all over Memphis, and it was with various such groups that she began expanding on her guitar style. At this time she also entered a common-law, as well as a musical, relationship, with a musician named Kansas Joe McCoy, and together they recorded Bumble Bee. Unfortunately not included in this set, the hit would later be covered by Muddy Waters as Honey Bee.

What stands out immediately in this 1997 compilation from Columbia Legacy's Mojo Workin' Series, is the raw, growling power of her voice along with her intense guitar picking which put her in the same class as any of her male contemporaries.

The volume contains virtually no liner notes, but on the reverse is this paragraph which is worth repeating: "Beauty and badness ... one of the greatest of all blues guitarists [man, woman or child], Memphis Minnie also sang the blues with a style all her own. In addition to her vast talent, Minnie was strikingly good looking, flamboyant and determined to succeed in a time when women were expected to accept a secondary roll in society. In the face of unthinkable odds, Minnie earned the recognition of her mostly-male peers and became a bona-fide star in her day. Her original version of When The Levee Breaks [with Kansas Joe] would become standard of the rock vernacular when covered by Led Zeppelin at the apex of that supergroup's career."

Unfortunately, the sound quality of the tracks vary greatly, with some sounding like thay were transferred direct from 78 rpm to CD with no attempt to reduce the hiss and pop, while others offer a progressively cleaner sound [the best of which are the previously unreleased tracks 7, 17, and 18]. Two tracks [3 and 4] honour the Brown Bomber himself, Joe Louis.

Minnie, as with her idol Ma Rainey, liked to demonstrate her new-found wealth by traveling from show to show in expensive automobiles and by wearing flashy, heavy bracelets made from silver dollars.

Operating out of Chicago in the Dirty Thirties, Minnie added a bass and drums to her sound, and it was in this period that she left McCoy to marry another musician named Ernest Lawlars, known more familiarly as Little Son Joe.

They continued to cut records right into the 1950s before increasingly poor health forced her to return to Memphis in 1958 and give up the music business. Almost completely infirm from that point on, she died on August 6, 1973, in Memphis at age 76. In 1980, 20 inductees were honored by the Blues Hall Of Fame in its first year of existence. Memphis Minnie was one of them.

Hopefully, more and more of her material will be properly cleaned up and made available on CD in the not-too-distant future. She was a real gem and well worth a listen, even in these crackling tracks.