Hoodoo Lady, 1933-1937

Memphis Minnie

album cover

One of the Great Female Guitarists

Memphis Minnie was a blues shouter and an entertainer, one of the early masters of double entendre who could make a commonplace greeting sound like a risqué invitation. She's not remembered enough these days, and, when she is, too often it's only for her showbiz singing style. But an equally consequential legacy is evident on this compilation: The Mississippi-born Lizzie Douglas, the oldest of thirteen children, rocked the acoustic guitar.

She kept wicked time, for starters, had a lusty, distinctive sense of swing, and was able to tear out surprisingly substantial solos. Her three husbands were all musicians and collaborators, and in the course of those marriages she established the basic dynamic of small-group blues that became commonplace in postwar Chicago. One legend says that she beat two prominent early bluesmen, Big Bill Broonzy and Tampa Red, in a guitar contest, and hearing her deft work on "Ice Man (Come On Up)," that seems totally plausible. She might not have been the flashiest player, but Douglas had a knack for cutting to the chase with apt single-line inventions and hard-hitting chords.

Hoodoo Lady collects her entertaining 1930s recordings, widely considered her best. These show that she was a key link between rural blues and the more disciplined, uniform twelve-bar blues form that Broonzy and others popularized later. Among the gems are "Down in the Alley," "I'm a Bad Luck Woman," and a slow confession called "Caught Me Wrong Again." On that one, her man discovers her cheating, but Minnie, mindful of the decorum of the age, describes it differently: "You caught me makin' friends," she acknowledges, with an unmistakable wink in her voice.

Genre: Blues
Released: 1991, Columbia/Legacy
Key Tracks: "Down in the Alley," "I'm a Bad Luck Woman," "Ice Man (Come On Up)," "Caught Me Wrong Again."
Next Stop: Big Mama Thornton: Hound Dog
After That: Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Gospel Train
Book Pages: 495–496

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Comments:

#1 from Roger Williamson - 10/12/2010 5:53

Dear Mr. Moon,
The Memphis Minnie album Hoodoo Lady shown in your online version of the list is an import on the Complete Blues label, and does not have, among others, Down In the Alley, Ice Man(Come on Up), or Caught Me Wrong Again. Those are on the Columbia Legacy Album: Memphis Minnie Hoodoo Lady, 1933-37. I’m A Bad Luck Woman, Hoodoo Lady, and My Butcher Man are on both recordings, and the same picture of Memphis Minnie is on the cover of each.

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