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1969 – ” BIG MAMA ” ” THORNTON ( 1926-1984 ) Blues Songwriter and Singer. Vintage original 6 3/4 x 10 inch glossy fiber base silv by DAVID GAHR . Crisp and exceptionally very fine. Vintage original created 51 years ago. Willie Mae Thornton, better known as Big Mama Thornton, was an American rhythm-and-blues singer and songwriter. David Gahr was an American photographer. He was born in Milwaukee to Russian immigrant parents. He studied economics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and he served in the infantry in Europe in World War II. Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton only notched one national hit in her lifetime, but it was a true monster. “Hound Dog” held down the top slot on Billboard’s R&B; charts for seven long weeks in 1953. Alas, Elvis Presley’s rocking 1956 cover was even bigger, effectively obscuring Thornton’s chief claim to immortality.That’s a damned shame, because Thornton’s menacing growl was indeed something special. The hefty belter first opened her pipes in church but soon embraced the blues. She toured with Sammy Green’s Hot Harlem Revue during the 1940s. Thornton was ensconced on the Houston circuit when Peacock Records boss Don Robey signed her in 1951. She debuted on Peacock with “Partnership Blues” that year, backed by trumpeter Joe Scott’s band.But it was her third Peacock date with Johnny Otis’ band that proved the winner. With Pete Lewis laying down some truly nasty guitar behind her, Big Mama shouted “Hound Dog,” a tune whose authorship remains a bone of contention to this day (both Otis and the team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller claim responsibility), and soon hit the road a star.But it was an isolated incident. Though Thornton cut some fine Peacock follow-ups — “I Smell a Rat,” “Stop Hoppin’ on Me,” “The Fish,” “Just like a Dog” — through 1957, she never again reached the hit parade. Even Elvis was apparently unaware of her; he was handed “Hound Dog” by Freddie Bell, a Vegas lounge rocker. Early-’60s 45s for Irma, Bay-Tone, Kent, and Sotoplay did little to revive her sagging fortunes, but a series of dates for Arhoolie that included her first vinyl rendition of “Ball and Chain” in 1968 and two albums for Mercury in 1969-1970 put her back in circulation (Janis Joplin’s overwrought but well-intentioned cover of “Ball and Chain” didn’t hurt either). Along with her imposing vocals, Thornton began to emphasize her harmonica skills during the 1960s.Thornton was a tough cookie. She dressed like a man and took no guff from anyone, even as the pounds fell off her once-ample frame and she became downright scrawny during the last years of her life. Medical personnel found her lifeless body in an L.A. rooming house in 1984. Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton, one of America’s finest blues singers, is probably best known as the woman who originated “Hound Dog,” Elvis Presley’s most successful single, and “Ball ‘n’ Chain,” one of Janis Joplin’s signature songs. Thornton was a masterful performer whose live performances on the blues, rhythm and blues, and rock circuits riveted audiences. Presley and Joplin recognized her genius and borrowed elements of her vocal sound and style of delivery — as well as key parts of her repertoire – as they developed their own creative voices. Willie Mae Thornton was born on December 11, 1926, in Ariton, Alabama, and grew up in Montgomery. At the age of 14, she left home to pursue her dream of becoming a professional singer. The recent death of her mother and a job cleaning spittoons at a local tavern gave her little reason to refuse the opportunity to join Sammy Green’s Hot Harlem Revue after she successfully auditioned for the troupe. As a member of this traveling variety show, she toured the southern black circuit, honing her skills as a comedian and blues singer in the vein of Bessie Smith. After seven years on the road, Thornton put down roots in Houston. She secured a regular gig singing at the Eldorado Club where her talent brought her to the attention of local black record mogul Don Robey. He signed her to his Peacock Records label and Thornton began recording for him in 1951. She continued to tour, winning over audiences with her vocal power, joking repartee, an ability to play harmonica and drums, and personal charisma. At Harlem’s Apollo Theater, venue manager Frank Schiffman christened her “Big Mama” after she stole the show from headliner Little Esther. The nickname referenced her physical size — she was a tall, heavyset woman — and the magnitude of her voice. In 1953, Thornton scored her first and only chart hit with a song Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, then fledgling songwriters, had written for her. “Hound Dog” spent 14 weeks on Billboard’s R&B charts, seven of them in the number one slot. Thornton’s “Hound Dog” differed from most of the rhythm and blues records of the era in its spare arrangement. There are none of the honking saxophone solos or pounding piano flourishes that marked the R&B sound. Instead, supported by guitar, bass and drums, her resonant vocals dominate the foreground, conveying her haughty relief at being through with a trifling man. Thornton maintains a confident attitude, bringing the blues tradition of outspoken women into the R&B context and helping to set the style for rock and roll by putting sexuality and play with gender expectations in the foreground. Thornton’s “Hound Dog” was so popular that it spawned 10 covers before Elvis Presley recorded it in 1956. Presley’s version of the song borrows heavily from the rendition he saw lounge act Freddie Bell and the Bellboys perform in Las Vegas, but he also incorporated elements of Thornton’s style: The snarl in her voice and the ways she snaps off the words in the song’s opening, for example. His faster tempo eradicates some of the confident defiance of Thornton’s original, but he imports her swagger and her forceful vocals, following her practice of “hollering it out” in a deep, husky voice. Ironically, Presley’s sexy masculinity comes into being in part as he draws on Thornton’s confrontational black femininity. Thornton’s sound and attitude were also important resources for Janis Joplin, who encountered the blues great in the mid-1960s when both women were living and working in the San Francisco Bay area. Thornton had been active on the region’s blues scene since moving there from Houston in 1956. She became known to the young white blues revivalists and helped to shape the sound of the next phase of rock and roll, most notably through her connection to Joplin who recorded Thornton’s composition “Ball ‘n’ Chain.” Joplin’s vocal style, which rock critic Robert Christgau described as “two-thirds Willie Mae Thornton and one-third Kitty Wells,” partly grew out of singing against the volume produced by her band. Her full-throttle vocal approach is key to her self-expression and it helped set the template for metal, punk and grunge vocals in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties. Joplin’s biographer Alice Echols notes that she could sing in a “pretty voice,” but that she was adamant that she didn’t want to do so. Studying an artist like Thornton, a blues shouter who sang with considerable volume and didn’t try to “sound pretty,” gave Joplin a viable alternative. Modeling her vocals after Thornton’s rough and commanding delivery enabled Joplin to find her singing voice. Commenting on her music, Thornton said: “My singing comes from my experience… My own experience. I never had no one teach me nothin’. I never went to school for music or nothin’. I taught myself to sing and to blow harmonica and even to play drums by watchin’ other people! I can’t read music, but I know what I’m singing! I don’t sing like nobody but myself.” By singing like herself, Thornton created a distinctive sound that thrilled audiences and inspired her fellow musicians, earning her considerable respect — if not a lot of money. She was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1984. A quintessential troubadour whose compelling vocals left a lasting imprint on rock and roll, Thornton was frequently on the road, battling the blues until her death in Los Angeles on July 25, 1984. Willie Mae Thornton (1926-1984) was an influential African American blues singer and songwriter whose career extended from the 1940s to the early 1980s. She was called “Big Mama” for both her size and her robust, powerful voice. She is best known for her gutsy 1952 rhythm and blues recording of “Hound Dog,” later covered by Elvis Presley, and for her original song “Ball and Chain,” made famous by Janis Joplin. Thornton’s compositions include more than 20 blues songs.Willie Mae Thornton was born December 11, 1926, to Thomas H. Thornton and Edna M. Richardson Thornton. She was one of at least four siblings. Several sources indicate she was born on the rural outskirts of Montgomery, but a few indicate the unincorporated community of Ariton in Dale County. By the time she was three, the family had settled in Lauderdale County. Her father was a minister and her mother sang in the church choir, and Willie Mae grew up singing in church and learned drums and harmonica, perhaps from a brother who was an outstanding player, later known as “Harp” Thornton.Willie Mae’s mother died when she was 14, and she took a job cleaning a local saloon and soon was substituting for the regular singer. Accounts of how she attracted the notice of Atlanta music promoter Sammy Green vary. In one version, he heard her win first prize in a local amateur contest; in another she helped his artists move a piano up the club stairs. In any event, in 1941 Thornton joined Green’s Georgia-based show, The Hot Harlem Revue, and remained with him for seven years. Billed as the “New Bessie Smith,” she sang and danced throughout the southeastern United States. She later acknowledged the influence of artists heard during this time, including Smith, Ma Rainey, Junior Parker, and Memphis Minnie.In 1948, Thornton left the Revue and settled in Houston, where she would contribute to the development of the “Texas blues” style. In this period, she worked with two producers: bandleader Johnny Otis and, most significant, a flamboyant black entrepreneur named Don Robey. Robey reportedly heard Thornton in Houston’s El Dorado Ballroom and was impressed with her ability to play multiple instruments, rare for a female singer. He signed her to a five-year contract with his Peacock Records Label. (This independent studio, later called Duke-Peacock, was known for gritty rhythm and blues and gospel and was an important influence on soul music and rock and featured artists such as Marie Adams, Johnny Ace, and a young Little Richard.)Thornton’s open lesbianism caused some tension with Robey, but he produced her first recordings and set up a regular performance schedule for her in his Houston club, The Bronze Peacock, and on the southern performance trail known as the “Chitlin’ Circuit.” This string of clubs and venues covered the eastern and southern United States and were considered safe for African American musicians to play in. They ranged from the Cotton Club in New York’s Harlem neighborhood to local juke joints in Mississippi. Thornton spent much of the early 1950s on the road or recording for Robey or Johnny Otis when in Houston or Los Angeles. Willie Mae Thornton Performs in New York CityIn 1952, Thornton travelled to New York City with the Otis Show to play the famed Apollo Theatre, where she initially served as the opening act for R&B artists “Little” Esther Phillips and Mel Walker but soon was promoted to headliner. She first earned the nickname “Big Mama” at this time. In August, at a recording session in southwest Los Angeles, she was approached by the young songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller—soon to become rock & roll legends. They offered her a 12-bar blues vocal called “Hound Dog,” which she liked and paired on a single with her own “They Call Me Big Mama” on the B-side. Her exuberant “Hound Dog,” laden with open sexual references, whoops, and barks, was released nationwide in 1953 and soon topped the R&B charts. Despite its sale of two million copies, Thornton received only $500. In contrast, Elvis Presley’s 1956 version, heavily refined for mainstream audiences, brought him both fame and considerable financial reward. This is perhaps the most notorious example of the inequity that often existed when a black original was covered by a white artist.Rhythm & blues were soon eclipsed by the growth of rock & roll, and Thornton’s career slowed in the mid-1950s, although she was only in her thirties. Her agreements with both Robey and Otis expired, and in the late 1950s, she moved to San Francisco to perform with her old friend Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, a former Duke-Peacock artist. She had no contract or regular band and endured a number of difficult years. Fortunately, traditional blues were revived by the mid-1960s through the enthusiastic interest of artists such as Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and the Rolling Stones, and the Bay Area became a center of blues activity. Although she still did not have regular support, Thornton always was invited to the Monterey Jazz Festival and in 1965 toured Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival, an unusual honor for a female artist.In the late 1960s, she made several seminal recordings for Chris Strachwitz, producer of Arhoolie Records, including Big Mama Thornton: In Europe (1966), backed by Buddy Guy, Walter Horton, and Freddy Below; Big Mama Thornton with the Chicago Blues Band (1966), with Muddy Waters, Sam “Lightnin’” Hopkins, and Otis Spann; and Ball & Chain (1968), a compilation of original work by Thornton, Hopkins, and Larry Williams. Rock artists took note of these powerful recordings. The title song of Ball & Chain became a signature song for Thornton’s great admirer Janis Joplin, and in September 1968 Thornton appeared at the Sky River Rock Festival with a lineup that included the Grateful Dead, James Cotton, and Santana.The 1970s brought more documentation of her work: Saved (Pentagram Records), She’s Back (Backbeat), and Jail and Sassy Mama! (Vanguard). Also at this time, however, years of heavy drinking began to affect Thornton’s health. She had to be led to the bandstand at the 1979 San Francisco Blues Festival, and despite illness gave a stunning performance. She survived a serious auto accident and rallied to perform at the 1983 Newport Jazz Festival with Muddy Waters, B. B. King, and Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, resulting in a live recording, The Blues—A Real Summit Meeting (Buddha Records). Thornton’s final compilation, Quit Snoopin’ Round My Door, was released posthumously by Ace Records (U.K.). Willie Mae Thornton died of a heart attack in Los Angeles on July 25, 1984, at the age of 57. The funeral was led by her old friend, now Reverend Johnny Otis, and many artists paid tribute. She was buried in Inglewood Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. That same year, she was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame. She was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 2020. A native of Montgomery, Alabama, Willie Mae Thornton’s style was heavily influenced by the gospel music she listed to growing up. Her father was a Baptist preacher. Her musical education started in the church but continued through her observation of the rhythm-and-blues singers Bessie Smith and Memphis Minnie, whom she deeply admired. Her performances were characterized by her deep, powerful voice and strong sense of self. She wroteseveral blues songs, including “Ball ‘n Chain,” which is included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list of the “500 Songs that shaped Rock and Roll.” She was the first person to record Leiber and Stollers “Hound Dog” which became her biggest hit, staying seven weeks at number one on the Billboard R&B chart in 1953 and selling almost two million copies. Scholars have praised Thornton for subverting the traditional roles of African-American women. Sheadded a gutsy female voice to a field that was dominated by white males and her strong personalityderailed stereotypes. Elvis and Janis Joplin were big fans of her work and incorporated aspects of herperformances into their own work. She was born in December of 1926 and died in Los Angeles in 1984 at the age of 57. In 2004, thenonprofit Will Mae Rock Camp for Girls was established in New York. Its mission is to provide music educations to girls ranging from eight to 18. Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton was a blues singer and songwriter whose recordings of “Hound Dog” and “Ball ‘n’ Chain” later were transformed into huge hits by Elvis Presley and Janis Joplin. Willie Mae Thornton was born on December 11, 1926 outside of Montgomery in rural Ariton, Alabama. Her father was a Baptist minister and her mother was a church singer in his congregation. Thornton’s mother died when the singer was 14, and she left home to pursue a career as an entertainer. She joined the Georgia-based Hot Harlem Revue as an accomplished singer, drummer, and harmonica player and spent seven years as a regular performer throughout the South. Following her years as a traveling blues singer, Thornton moved to Houston in 1948 to begin her recording career. In Houston, Thornton joined Don Robey’s Peacock Records in 1951, often working closely with fellow label artist Johnny Otis. Her professional relationship with Otis and Robey proved fruitful for Thornton, who, along with “Little” Esther Phillips and Mel Walker, toured with Otis. Their tour traveled throughout the eastern and southern United States, including benchmark shows at Houston’s Bronze Peacock and Harlem’s Cotton Club. One of Thornton’s earliest and most popular recorded tracks was “Hound Dog,” initially released by Peacock in 1953. Thornton’s version of “Hound Dog” topped the R&B charts for seven weeks and sold over two million copies nationwide. Though the song brought acclaim to Thornton, it only yielded her about $500. The song became even more popular as Elvis Presley’s first hit record in 1956. As the popularity of Thornton’s traditional blues style waned in favor of the newer rock sound, she moved to San Francisco in the late 1950s and performed for several years without a label or promoter until the resurgent interest in traditional blues of the early 1960s again brought attention to her work. In the 1960s, Thornton recorded albums for the Arhoolie and Mercury labels, including collaborative albums such as Big Mama Thornton with the Chicago Blues Band (1967) with Muddy Waters and Ball ‘n’ Chain (1968) with Sam Lightnin’ Hopkins. Additionally, she was regularly featured at the Monterey Jazz Festival in San Francisco and American Folk Blues Festival throughout Europe. Though Thornton’s popularity continued to surge throughout the 1970s, her health deteriorated due to years of heavy drinking. As her unreleased material was gathered together for albums such as Saved (1973), Sassy Mama (1975) and Jail (1975), Thornton struggled to make performance and recording dates, including the 1979 San Francisco Blues Festival, where she needed assistance to mount the stage. As a final act of dedication to the blues, Thornton recovered from an automobile accident in the early 1980s to perform at the 1983 Newport Jazz Festival with artists such as Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Lloyd Glenn, producing a final album The Blues…A Real Summit Meeting. Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton died in Los Angeles on July 25, 1984 at the age of 57 from complications resulting from a heart attack. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, on 11 December 1926, Willie Mae Thornton’s father was a minister, and as a young girl, she and her six brothers and sisters frequently sang in his church. While still very young, she learned to play harmonica and drums, and by the age of 14 – following the death of her mother – she had left home to make her way in music. She travelled and sang throughout the South and when Sam Green’s Hot Harlem Revue came to town in 1941, Green hired her. She spent the next seven years on the road with the Revue, singing and dancing in clubs all through the South. In 1948 she left the Revue in Texas and settled in Houston, playing with Louis Jordan’s band, Bobby Bland, Ray Charles and Little Junior Parker, among others. She was discovered while singing at Houston’s Eldorado Ballroom by a black entrepreneur and reputed gambler named Don Robey, at that time the owner of several Houston businesses including a local record shop, a club called The Bronze Peacock, the Buffalo Booking Agency, a publishing company and the Peacock record label. Robey signed her to a deal with Peacock in 1951. He was evidently impressed by her seasoned live performance; she was one of the rare women singers of that era who was also a capable multi-instrumentalist, and her size was already impressive enough (six feet tall and 300 pounds) to give her the nickname she wore for the rest of her life. She carried forward the ‘tough blues mama’ musical tradition established years earlier by Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Memphis Minnie, and was a forceful, hearty blues shouter of tremendous power and control. Robey felt that her exciting stage performance would translate well onto records, and he spent the next five years trying, with some success, different ways to market her sound. In 1952 she joined Johnny Otis’ Rhythm and Blues Caravan and played in the North for the first time, touring almost continuously. The following year she had her own #1 R&B hit with Hound Dog, recorded with the Otis band in Los Angeles. Elvis Presley‘s version (which was a #1 pop single in 1956) was directly influenced by Thornton’s 1953 recording of the song. Thornton moved to California in 1956 and was living in San Francisco when the Sixties blues revival brought her to the attention of young white singers like Janis Joplin. Thereafter, Big Mama was on the bill at most of the major jazz and blues festivals, both in the US and overseas. Ball and Chain, which was written by Thornton, was recorded by Janis Joplin in 1968. But Big Mama herself never profited: “Didn’t get no money from them at all,” she once commented. “Everybody livin’ in a house but me. I’m just livin’.” Willie Mae Thornton (December 11, 1926 – July 25, 1984), better known as Big Mama Thornton, was an American rhythm-and-blues singer and songwriter. She was the first to record Leiber and Stoller’s “Hound Dog”, in 1952,[2] which became her biggest hit, staying seven weeks at number one on the Billboard R&B chart in 1953[3] and selling almost two million copies.[4] Thornton’s other recordings included the original version of “Ball and Chain”, which she wrote. Her recording of Hound Dog, written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller in 1952, and later recorded by Elvis Presley, reached Number 1 on the Rhythm & Blues Records chart. According to Maureen Mahon, a music professor at New York University, “the song is seen as an important beginning of rock-and-roll, especially in its use of the guitar as the key instrument”.[5] Contents1Biography1.1Early life1.2Early career1.3Success1.4Late career and death2Style3Legacy4Discography4.1Studio and live albums4.2Compilations5See also6References7Bibliography8External linksBiographyEarly lifeThornton’s birth certificate states that she was born in Ariton, Alabama,[6] but in an interview with Chris Strachwitz, she claimed Montgomery, Alabama, as her birthplace, probably because Montgomery was better known than Ariton.[7] She was introduced to music in a Baptist church, where her father was a minister and her mother a singer. She and her six siblings began to sing at early ages.[8] Her mother died young, and Willie Mae left school and got a job washing and cleaning spittoons in a local tavern. In 1940 she left home and, with the help of Diamond Teeth Mary, joined Sammy Green’s Hot Harlem Revue and was soon billed as the “New Bessie Smith”.[7] Her musical education started in the church but continued through her observation of the rhythm-and-blues singers Bessie Smith and Memphis Minnie, whom she deeply admired.[9] Early careerThornton’s career began to take off when she moved to Houston in 1948. “A new kind of popular blues was coming out of the clubs in Texas and Los Angeles, full of brass horns, jumpy rhythms, and wisecracking lyrics.”[10] In 1951 she signed a recording contract with Peacock Records and performed at the Apollo Theater in 1952. Also in 1952, while working with another Peacock artist Johnny Otis, she recorded “Hound Dog”, the first record produced by its writers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. The pair were present at the recording,[11] with Leiber demonstrating the song in the vocal style they had envisioned;[12][13] “We wanted her to growl it,” Stoller said, which she did. Otis played drums, after the original drummer was unable to play an adequate part. The record sold more than half a million copies, and went to number one on the R&B chart,[14] helping to bring in the dawn of rock ‘n’ roll.[15] Although the record made Thornton a star, she saw little of the profits.[16] On Christmas Day 1954 in a theatre in Houston, Texas, she witnessed fellow performer Johnny Ace, also signed to Duke and Peacock record labels, accidentally shoot and kill himself while playing with a .22 pistol.[17] Thornton continued to record for Peacock until 1957 and performed in R&B package tours with Junior Parker and Esther Phillips. Thornton’s success with “Hound Dog” was followed three years later by Elvis Presley recording his hit version of the song.[11] His recording at first annoyed Leiber who wrote, “I have no idea what that rabbit business is all about. The song is not about a dog, it’s about a man, a freeloading gigolo.”[15] But Elvis’ version sold ten million copies, so today few fans know that “Hound Dog” began as “an anthem of black female power.”[15] Similarly, Thornton originally recorded her song “Ball ‘n’ Chain” for Bay-Tone Records in the early 1960s, “and though the label chose not to release the song… they did hold on to the copyright”—which meant that Thornton missed out on the publishing royalties when Janis Joplin recorded the song later in the decade.[9] However, in a 1972 interview, Thornton acknowledged giving Joplin permission to record the song and receiving royalty payments from its sales.[18] SuccessAs her career began to fade in the late 1950s and early 1960s,[2] she left Houston and relocated to the San Francisco Bay area, “playing clubs in San Francisco and L.A. and recording for a succession of labels”,[9] notably the Berkeley-based Arhoolie Records. In 1965, she toured with the American Folk Blues Festival in Europe,[19] where her success was notable “because very few female blues singers at that time had ever enjoyed success across the Atlantic.”[20] While in England that year, she recorded her first album for Arhoolie, 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, 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”. A small combo, including her frequent guitarist Edward “Bee” Houston, provided backup for the two songs. Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company’s performance of “Ball ‘n’ Chain” at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and the release of the song on their number one album Cheap Thrills renewed interest in Thornton’s career.[21] By 1969, Thornton had signed with Mercury Records, which released her most successful album, Stronger Than Dirt, which reached number 198 in the Billboard Top 200 record chart. Thornton had now signed a contract with Pentagram Records and could finally fulfill one of her biggest dreams. A blues woman and the daughter of a preacher, Thornton loved the blues and what she called the “good singing” of gospel artists like the Dixie Hummingbirds and Mahalia Jackson. She had always wanted to record a gospel record, and with the album Saved (PE 10005), she achieved that longtime goal. The album includes the gospel classics “Oh, Happy Day,” “Down By The Riverside,” “Glory, Glory Hallelujah,” “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” “Lord Save Me,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “One More River” and “Go Down Moses”.[7] By then, the American blues revival had come to an end. While the original blues acts like Thornton mostly played smaller venues, younger people played their versions of blues in massive arenas for big money. Since the blues had seeped into other genres of music, the blues musician no longer needed impoverishment or geography for substantiation; the style was enough. While at home the offers became fewer and smaller, things changed for good in 1972, when Thornton was asked to rejoin the American Folk Blues Festival tour. She thought of Europe as a good place for herself, and, with the lack of engagements in the United States, she agreed happily. The tour, beginning on March 2, took Thornton to Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Sweden, where it ended on March 27 in Stockholm. With her on the bill were Eddie Boyd, Big Joe Williams, Robert Pete Williams, T- Bone Walker, Paul Lenart, Hartley Severns, Edward Taylor and Vinton Johnson. As in 1965, they garnered recognition and respect from other musicians who wanted to see them.[7] Late career and deathIn the 1970s, years of heavy drinking began to damage Thornton’s health. She was in a serious auto accident but recovered to perform at the 1973 Newport Jazz Festival with Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson (a recording of this performance, The Blues—A Real Summit Meeting, was released by Buddha Records). Thornton’s last albums were Jail and Sassy Mama for Vanguard Records in 1975. Other songs from the recording session were released in 2000 on Big Mama Swings. Jail captured her performances during mid-1970s concerts at two prisons in the northwestern United States.[7] She was backed by a blues ensemble that featured sustained jams by George “Harmonica” Smith and included the guitarists Doug MacLeod, Bee Houston and Steve Wachsman; the drummer Todd Nelson; the saxophonist Bill Potter; the bassist Bruce Sieverson; and the pianist J. D. Nicholson. She toured extensively through the United States and Canada, played at the Juneteenth Blues Fest in Houston and shared the bill with John Lee Hooker.[7] She performed at the San Francisco Blues Festival in 1979 and the Newport Jazz Festival in 1980. Big Mama also performed in the “Blues Is a Woman” concert that year, alongside classic blues legend Sippie Wallace, sporting a man’s three-piece suit, straw hat, and gold watch. She sat at center stage and played pieces she wanted to play, which were not on the program.[22] Thornton took part in the Tribal Stomp at Monterey Fairgrounds, the Third Annual Sacramento Blues Festival, and the Los Angeles Bicentennial Blues with BB King and Muddy Waters. She was a guest on an ABC-TV special hosted by actor Hal Holbrook and was joined by Aretha Franklin and toured through the club scene. She was also part of the award-winning PBS television special Three Generations of the blues with Sippie Wallace and Jeannie Cheatham.[7] Thornton was found dead at age 57 by medical personnel in a Los Angeles boarding house[23] on July 25, 1984. She died of heart and liver disorders due to her longstanding alcohol abuse. She had lost 355 pounds (161 kg) in a short time as a result of illness, her weight dropping from 450 to 95 pounds (204–43 kg).[9] StyleThornton’s performances were characterized by her deep, powerful voice and strong sense of self. She was given her nickname, “Big Mama,” by Frank Schiffman, the manager of Harlem’s Apollo Theater, because of her strong voice, size, and personality. Thornton stated that she was louder than any microphone and did not want a microphone to ever be as loud as she was. Alice Echols, the author of a biography of Janis Joplin, said that Thornton could sing in a “pretty voice” but did not want to. Thornton said, “My singing comes from my experience… My own experience. I never had no one teach me nothin’. I never went to school for music or nothin’. I taught myself to sing and to blow harmonica and even to play drums by watchin’ other people! I can’t read music, but I know what I’m singing! I don’t sing like nobody but myself.”[24][25] Her style was heavily influenced by gospel music that she listened to growing up at the home of a preacher, though her genre could be described as blues.[21] Thornton was quoted in a 1980 article in the New York Times: “when I was comin’ up, listening to Bessie Smith and all, they sung from their heart and soul and expressed themselves. That’s why when I do a song by Jimmy Reed or somebody, I have my own way of singing it. Because I don’t want to be Jimmy Reed, I want to be me. I like to put myself into whatever I’m doin’ so I can feel it”.[17] Scholars such as Maureen Mahon have praised Thornton for subverting traditional roles of African-American women.[21] She added a female voice to a field that was dominated by white males, and her strong personality transgressed stereotypes of what an African-American woman should be. This transgression was an integral part of her performance and stage persona.[26] LegacyDuring her career, Thornton was nominated for the Blues Music Awards six times.[21] In 1984, she 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”.[14] It was not until Janis Joplin covered Thornton’s “Ball ‘n’ Chain” that it became a hit. Thornton did not receive compensation for her song, but Joplin gave her the recognition she deserved by having Thornton open for her. Joplin found her singing voice through Thornton, who praised Joplin’s version of “Ball ‘n’ Chain”, saying, “That girl feels like I do.”[27] Thornton subsequently received greater recognition for her popular songs, but she is still underappreciated for her influence on the blues, rock & roll and soul music.[28] Thornton’s music was also influential in shaping American popular music. The lack of appreciation she received for “Hound Dog” and “Ball ‘n’ Chain” as they became popular hits is representative of the lack of recognition she received during her career as a whole.[29] Many critics argue that Thornton’s lack of recognition in the music industry is a reflection of an era of racial segregation in the United States, both physically and in the music industry.[21][29] Scholars suggest that Thornton’s lack of access to broader audiences (both white and black), may have been a barrier to her commercial success as both a vocalist and a composer.[21][29] The first full-length biography of Thornton, Big Mama Thornton: The Life and Music, by Michael Spörke, was published in 2014.[7] In 2004, the nonprofit Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls, named for Thornton, was founded to offer a musical education to girls from ages eight to eighteen.[21] Big Mama Thornton was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.[30] DiscographyStudio and live albumsYearTitleLabel1965Big Mama Thornton – In EuropeArhoolie1966Big Mama Thornton with the Muddy Water Blues BandArhoolie1969Stronger Than DirtMercury1970The Way It IsMercury1971SavedPentagram1975Jail (Live)Vanguard1975Sassy Mama! (Live)VanguardCompilationsYearTitleLabel1968Ball n’ ChainArhoolie1970She’s BackBackbeat/Peacock1978Mama’s Pride (compilation of tracks from Jail and Sassy Mama!)Vanguard David Gahr (September 18, 1922 – May 25, 2008) was an American photographer. He was born in Milwaukee to Russian immigrant parents. He studied economics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and he served in the infantry in Europe in World War II. He was one of “the pre-eminent photographers of American folk, blues, jazz and rock musicians of the 1960s and beyond.”[1] His photographic output includes more than five decades of musicians like Phil Spector, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, Janis Joplin, Sonny Terry, John Lennon and Pete Seeger, among others. His book, The Face of Folk Music (Citadel Press, 1968) with writer Robert Shelton captured the exploding American Folk music scene, with hundreds of images including Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs, Odetta, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, Mary Travers and Johnny Cash, among others. His work appeared prominently in Crawdaddy. Dozens of Wikipedia pages include reference to Gahr’s photographs, like those of The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, His Band and the Street Choir, Love, God, Murder, The Fugs First Album, Doc Watson and Son, Doc Watson at Gerdes Folk City, Stages: The Lost Album, The Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, and others. Gahr died in Brooklyn. He left behind a son and his daughter, Carla Gahr (also a NYC-based photographer, who, with her father, managed the David Gahr photography studio and archives). David Gahr, who turned his back on a promising career as a scholar to take pictures and listen to music and who as a result landed among the pre-eminent photographers of American folk, blues, jazz and rock musicians of the 1960s and beyond, died on Sunday at his home in Brooklyn. He was 85. His daughter, Carla, announced his death. Mr. Gahr’s prodigious output included posed photos and reportorial documents. Popular among his subjects for what they saw as a desire to elevate rather than merely capture them, he had a four-decade relationship with Bob Dylan, famously depicting him, gangly and youthful, at the Newport Folk Festivals of the early 1960s and taking studio photographs for the 2001 album “Love and Theft.” His portrait of Janis Joplin in full-throated performance appeared in 1988, two decades after it was taken, on the cover of Time magazine’s 20-year retrospective on 1968 as the year that shaped a generation. ImageDavid Gahr photographed Bob Dylan’s first concert appearance with an electric guitar in 1965 at the Newport Folk Festival.David Gahr photographed Bob Dylan’s first concert appearance with an electric guitar in 1965 at the Newport Folk Festival.Credit…David GahrHe captured an athletic and fiercely arch-backed Miles Davis, trumpet to his lips, for the cover of the 1970 album “A Tribute to Jack Johnson” and a pensive Bruce Springsteen for the cover of the 1973 album “The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle.” He shot dozens of album covers for Folkways Records. Mr. Gahr’s book-length collaboration with the writer Robert Shelton, “The Face of Folk Music” (Citadel Press, 1968), is an exhaustive chronicle of the rise of “the folk movement” of the 1960s, as Mr. Shelton called it, containing hundreds of black-and-white photographs of musicians on and off stage, including Mr. Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, Phil Ochs, Mary Travers, Johnny Cash and Sonny Terry. The book remains a testament to a world that Mr. Gahr not only documented but lived in. “I remember once when I was a girl Janis Joplin wanted a lift back from Newport,” Ms. Gahr said in a telephone interview this week. “But my mom thought she wouldn’t be a good influence.” David Gahr was born in Sept. 18, 1922, in Milwaukee, where, he said in published interviews, he grew up in a largely black neighborhood and was first exposed to blues and jazz. His parents, Max and Yetta, were immigrants from Russia; his father was a street peddler. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He served in the infantry in Europe in World War II and on his return became a doctoral candidate at Columbia. He was married, and to maintain his family he worked at a Sam Goody record store, where he photographed the famous musicians who came in as customers. He was invited to join the staff of The New Republic magazine in Washington, writing on economic issues, but stayed put and opted for the simpler economics of survival. ImageMr. Gahr captured a moment with John Lennon in Manhattan in 1974.Mr. Gahr captured a moment with John Lennon in Manhattan in 1974.Credit…David Gahr“I became a professional photographer on the morning my son, Seth, was born,” he told the magazine F.Y.I., the in-house publication of Time-Life, where he completed more than 2,000 assignments. Editors’ Picks Camp Here for Style Where Home Blends With Community Bunk Rooms Climb the Social LadderContinue reading the main storyHis wife, Ruth, died in 1993. In addition to his daughter, of Manhattan, and his son, of Stratham, N.H., he is survived by a brother, Samuel, of Milwaukee, and two grandchildren. Mr. Gahr’s portfolio was not restricted to music. He spent much of a decade from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s on assignments for Time magazine, many on art-related subjects with the writer Robert Hughes. He also worked for Life and later People. He photographed Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Salvador Dalí, Willem de Kooning and Georgia O’Keeffe. He took book-jacket photos of John Cheever and Arthur Miller. Asked why her father gave up the intellectual life so abruptly, Ms. Gahr said: “He didn’t want to move to Washington, D.C. And I think he found the whole idea a little boring. I remember him answering that question once. He said, ‘Economics? Yuk.’ He loved music.”

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