Big Mama Thornton

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Montgomery AL, United States (1926 – 1984)

Big Mama Thornton (Willie Mae Thornton, December 11, 1926, Montgomery, AL - July 25, 1984, Los Angeles, CA) was an American blues musician.

Her introduction to music, as with most fellow blues legends, started in the Baptist church. The daughter of a minister, she and her six siblings began to sing at a very early age. While still a child, Willie Mae taught herself to play the drums and harmonica, and by the age of 14, she had run away from home to make her career in secular music.

She joined Sammy Green’s “Hot Harlem Revue” and toured throughout the South in the 1940’s, first beginning her musical career in 1947. While touring Texas in 1948, Thornton left the Revue in favor of the state’s growing club scene, which she immersed herself in. It was during this time that she was discovered by Don Robey, a black entrepreneur who owned several clubs and record stores in the Houston, TX area. Impressed by her massive size (6 ft, 350+ lb),formidable multi-instrument abilities, and fiery stage presence, Robey signed her to his Peacock Records label, where he began the task of translating the forceful belter’s energy onto record.

Her big hit came, not from Robey’s capable pen, but from the young songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. It was “Hound Dog,” which she recorded in 1953 with the Johnny Otis band. Big Mama Thornton always claimed to have written the song herself (a claim which may actually hold some validity), and her ferocious rendition of it ( complete with Big Mama’s growl and a nasty guitar line by Pete Lewis) held the #1 spot in the Billboard rhythm and blues charts for nine weeks.

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1		Hound Dog			676
2		Little Red Rooster			85
3		Ball And Chain			79
4		They Call Me Big Mama			77
5		I Smell a Rat			75
6		Ball n' Chain			47
7		Walking Blues			38
8		The Big Change			31
9		I'm Feeling Alright			30
10		Wade in the Water			29
11		Sweet Little Angel			27
11		Nightmare			27
13		How Come			26
14		My Man Called Me			25
14		Let Your Tears Fall Baby			25

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