US R&B legend Big Mama Thornton is one of the forgotten "originators", to use Dr John's term for Professor Longhair, of rock'n'roll. The late Alabama native, who died almost exactly 38 years ago on July 25, 1984, recorded the first version of Leiber and Stoller's Hound Dog in 1952. After the record was released in 1953, it reached the top spot on Billboard's Rhythm & Blues Records Chart and sold 2 million copies. It was her biggest hit, but it paled in comparison to young Elvis Presley's version, which sold more than 10 million copies and helped propel Presley to global fame.
Thornton's version features her trademark growling vocals, and she stays true to the song's message, which she told several interviewers, was actually about a "freeloading gigolo", so the song is actually about female empowerment, not Elvis' pelvis twerks. She wrote and performed her own songs as well as covering others, perhaps most famously allowing a young Janis Joplin to record her song Ball And Chain, which Thornton had recorded in the early 1960s. Joplin's career took off and later she would say that Thornton's voice had inspired her to sing.
Last year, Canadian label Justin Time Records released what I first thought was a reissue of her first Vanguard studio album Sassy Mama, which was recorded in 1975 but in fact, despite the confusing title, it is a live recording of a 1977 show in Montreal. Don't let that put you off though because this is an excellent sample of one of her live shows, from a period when she was still on the top of her game (alcohol and hard living led her to a premature death at 57 and she died in poverty).
By the time she recorded this live show, Thornton was a veteran of the R&B and blues circuits. She was born into a gospel singing family in Alabama and had to leave school and work after her mother died. She cleaned spittoons in bars and learned her local music there; she listened to early blues singers like Bessie Smith and Memphis Minnie, both tough, larger-than-life singers who could stand up for themselves. In fact, in her early days, she was often dubbed the "new Bessie Smith".
She started in gospel, moved into blues, and joined in the early 1940s craze for "jump jive" (think of Louis Jordan) and moved with the times onto the then nascent R&B sound of the late 1940s (think Roy Brown, Ike Turner etc which would become the template for rock'n'roll to emerge in the 1950s).
Like many other R&B stars from the 1950s, Thornton found her music out of favour in the 1960s, following the rise of rock'n'roll and pop music, so she joined several important R&B tours to Europe, including the American Folk Blues Festival, which featured musical giants like Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters. She rode the blues revival wave until it petered out in the late 1970s and then went on to record a gospel album and released two live albums, Jail and Sassy Mama on Vanguard.
The new vinyl release of Sassy Mama was recorded at The Rising Sun Celebrity Jazz Club and she plays with a terrific band of blues stalwarts who collectively create the perfect musical accompaniment to showcase her voice and harmonica playing. Guitarist John Primer, who played in Junior Wells' band and with Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon, is one of the standout performers; his delicate and spare accompaniment on Ball And Chain and Summertime (not a cover you might expect as it is a slow, burning version) which perfectly matches Thornton's vocals. Primer is another one of those great "less is more" guitarists like Earl King and while Thornton shouts out for "BB King" style songs, Primer does not deliver note-for-note copies of King's playing, he pares his own style right down to the basics and delivers his version (see Primer's website for more info on this great artist).
One of the beauties of this album is that it includes her stage patter with the audience, and in her introduction to Ball And Chain, she talks about Joplin's cover version and makes a statement all musicians should take note of: "I can't sing it like nobody but me."
The songs on the album are either slow-burning blues numbers that build to an emotional climax like Tell Me Pretty Baby or uptempo dancers like on the medley Hound Dog/Walkin' The Dog. My own favourites are Rock Me Baby (from the 40s onwards this idea of rock and roll, both euphemisms for sex, are a feature of many songs) and the slowest, most laid-back version of Gershwin's Summertime I've ever heard.
Big Mama Thornton was an important artist in the development of post-World War II R&B and a trail-blazing woman in the male-dominated world of blues and rhythm and blues. Willie Dixon wrote Little Red Rooster for Howling Wolf, and Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones made that song world-famous, and I'll whisper this quietly because it may be heresy to some, but I've always preferred Big Mama's version, which is the definition of "sassy"
John Clewley can be contacted at clewley.john@gmail.com
