Jessie Mae Hemphill - il popolo del blues

Jessie Mae Hemphill onstage addressing a Beale Street audience during a 1980s Memphis music festival
Photo: Lisa McGaughran

Jessie Mae Hemphill, born in Senatobia, Mississippi, on October 13, 1933, is a pioneering electric guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist specializing in the primal, North Mississippi country blues traditions of her family and regional heritage.
The first field recordings of her work were made by blues researcher George Mitchell in 1967 and ethnomusicologist Dr. David Evans in 1973 when she was known as Jessie Mae Brooks, using the surname from a brief early marriage, but the recordings were not released. In 1978, Dr. Evans came to Memphis to teach at Memphis State University (now University of Memphis). The school founded the High Water recording label in 1979 to promote interest in the indigenous music of The South. Evans made the first high-quality field recordings of Hemphill in that year and soon after produced her first sessions for the High Water label.
Hemphill then launched a recording career in the early 1980s, releasing singles produced by Evans on this university label, which later became a production company who licensed their masters to labels like HighTone and Inside Sounds. In 1981 her first full-length album, She-Wolf, was licensed from High Water and released on France's Vogue Records. In the early 1980s, she performed in a Mississippi drum corps put together by Evans composed of herself, Abe Young, and Jim Harper on Tav Falco's Panther Burns' Behind the Magnolia Curtain album; she also appeared in another drum group with Young and fife-and-drum band veteran Othar Turner in a televised appearance in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Other recordings of hers were released on the French label Black and Blue, and she performed concerts across the United States and other countries including France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and Canada. She won the W. C. Handy Award for best traditional female blues artist in 1987 and 1988.
In 1990 her first American full length album, Feelin' Good, was released, which also won a Handy Award for best acoustic album. Hemphill suffered a stroke that paralyzed her left side in 1993, preventing her from playing guitar, resulting in her retiring at that time from her blues career. Her musical background began with playing snare drum and bass drum in the fife-and-drum band led by her grandfather, Sid Hemphill. Aside from sitting in at Memphis bars a few times in the 1950s, most of her playing was done in family and informal settings such as picnics with fife and drum music until her 1979 recordings.
She has been unique in country blues as a female defying tradition by singing her own original material while accompanying herself on electric guitar and playing tambourine with her foot. She employs a folk-blues open tuning style with a hypnotic drone in her guitar playing instead of relying on standard, 12-bar blues styles. She occasionally was accompanied on a second guitar by producer Evans, who himself has long served as guitarist for Memphis' Last Chance Jug Band and who won a Grammy in 2003 for his liner notes in a Charley Patton box set.
French videographer Marc Oriol produced a documentary on Hemphill called Me & My Guitar, Jessie Mae Hemphill, which was shown on France's TV Cannes in 2001. In 2003 Hemphill released two albums. Get Right Blues, released on Inside Sounds, contained material recorded from 1979 through the early 1980s; Heritage of the Blues: Shake It, Baby, released on HighTone, was a budget CD containing tracks from previous releases, along with three previously unreleased tracks. Dare You to Do It Again, released in 2004, is primarily an album of gospel standards recorded after Hemphill's stroke, as sung by the ailing vocalist with accompaniment from friends playing the instruments.

Discography

She-Wolf (1981; reissued 1998)
Swamp Surfing in Memphis (various artists, 1986, rereleased 1998)
Mississippi Blues Festival (various artists, 1986; reissued 2004)
Giants of Country Blues Guitar (1967–1981) (various artists, 1988)
Feelin' Good (1990; reissued 1997 with extra tracks)
The Fabulous Low-Price HMG Blues Sampler (various artists, 1997)
Deep South Blues (various artists, 1999)
Heritage of the Blues: Shake It Baby (2003)
Get Right Blues (2003)
Dare You to Do It Again (2004)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


.	Jessie Mae Hemphill Jessie Mae Hemphill Jessie Mae Hemphill onstage addressing a Beale Street audience during a 1980s Memphis music festival Photo: Lisa McGaughran Jessie Mae Hemphill, born in Senatobia, Mississippi, on October 13, 1933, is a pioneering electric guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist specializing in the primal, North Mississippi country blues traditions of her family and regional heritage. The first field recordings of her work were made by blues researcher George Mitchell in 1967 and ethnomusicologist Dr. David Evans in 1973 when she was known as Jessie Mae Brooks, using the surname from a brief early marriage, but the recordings were not released. In 1978, Dr. Evans came to Memphis to teach at Memphis State University (now University of Memphis). The school founded the High Water recording label in 1979 to promote interest in the indigenous music of The South. Evans made the first high-quality field recordings of Hemphill in that year and soon after produced her first sessions for the High Water label. Hemphill then launched a recording career in the early 1980s, releasing singles produced by Evans on this university label, which later became a production company who licensed their masters to labels like HighTone and Inside Sounds. In 1981 her first full-length album, She-Wolf, was licensed from High Water and released on France's Vogue Records. In the early 1980s, she performed in a Mississippi drum corps put together by Evans composed of herself, Abe Young, and Jim Harper on Tav Falco's Panther Burns' Behind the Magnolia Curtain album; she also appeared in another drum group with Young and fife-and-drum band veteran Othar Turner in a televised appearance in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Other recordings of hers were released on the French label Black and Blue, and she performed concerts across the United States and other countries including France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and Canada. She won the W. C. Handy Award for best traditional female blues artist in 1987 and 1988. In 1990 her first American full length album, Feelin' Good, was released, which also won a Handy Award for best acoustic album. Hemphill suffered a stroke that paralyzed her left side in 1993, preventing her from playing guitar, resulting in her retiring at that time from her blues career. Her musical background began with playing snare drum and bass drum in the fife-and-drum band led by her grandfather, Sid Hemphill. Aside from sitting in at Memphis bars a few times in the 1950s, most of her playing was done in family and informal settings such as picnics with fife and drum music until her 1979 recordings. She has been unique in country blues as a female defying tradition by singing her own original material while accompanying herself on electric guitar and playing tambourine with her foot. She employs a folk-blues open tuning style with a hypnotic drone in her guitar playing instead of relying on standard, 12-bar blues styles. She occasionally was accompanied on a second guitar by producer Evans, who himself has long served as guitarist for Memphis' Last Chance Jug Band and who won a Grammy in 2003 for his liner notes in a Charley Patton box set. French videographer Marc Oriol produced a documentary on Hemphill called Me & My Guitar, Jessie Mae Hemphill, which was shown on France's TV Cannes in 2001. In 2003 Hemphill released two albums. Get Right Blues, released on Inside Sounds, contained material recorded from 1979 through the early 1980s; Heritage of the Blues: Shake It, Baby, released on HighTone, was a budget CD containing tracks from previous releases, along with three previously unreleased tracks. Dare You to Do It Again, released in 2004, is primarily an album of gospel standards recorded after Hemphill's stroke, as sung by the ailing vocalist with accompaniment from friends playing the instruments. Discography She-Wolf (1981; reissued 1998) Swamp Surfing in Memphis (various artists, 1986, rereleased 1998) Mississippi Blues Festival (various artists, 1986; reissued 2004) Giants of Country Blues Guitar (1967–1981) (various artists, 1988) Feelin' Good (1990; reissued 1997 with extra tracks) The Fabulous Low-Price HMG Blues Sampler (various artists, 1997) Deep South Blues (various artists, 1999) Heritage of the Blues: Shake It Baby (2003) Get Right Blues (2003) Dare You to Do It Again (2004) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia back to bluesman	.
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