Big Mama Thornton filmed live in September 1965 at the Südwestfunk TV Studios in Baden Baden, Germany.
Big Mama Thornton - Vocal
Eddie Boyd - Piano
Buddy Guy - Guitar
Lonesome Jimmy Lee (Robinson) - Bass
Fred Below - Drums
I don't make anything colourising and putting these videos together so please support the channel with the link here if you can its greatly appreciated! https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/bluesincolour
Big Mama Thornton was born Willie Mae Thornton on December 11, 1926, in Ariton, Alabama, one of seven children born to a minister and his wife, a singer. She first took up singing in her father's church, and learned the ropes of secular music by listening to the work of Memphis Minnie and Bessie Smith. She also learned to play the harmonica, picking up the instrument when she was eight. When Thornton was 14 years old, her mother died, and she took on odd jobs to help support the family. It wasn't long before she ran away from home, and with the help of blues vocalist Diamond Teeth Mary McClain, she joined a traveling show, Sammy Green's Hot Harlem Revue, where she earned the nickname "the New Bessie Smith." In 1948, she relocated to Houston, Texas, a city with a thriving blues and jazz scene, and her vocal style was a good match for the upbeat R&B and jump blues sounds that were becoming a staple at Black nightspots, both on-stage and on the jukeboxes. Don Robey signed her to his Peacock Records label in 1951, and the following year, she released her debut single. Thornton launched her recording career with a song called "Hound Dog," written by a pair of budding songwriters, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who also helped produce the session. (R&B legend Johnny Otis, who had mentored Thornton, played drums on the track.) Leiber and Stoller told her they wanted her to growl as she sang, and her rough and ready performance made the song a hit, selling over 500,000 copies and reaching top of the Rhythm & Blues charts.
Thornton continued to record for Peacock and toured frequently, including appearing as part of a package tour of artists from Robey's labels that saw her sharing bills with Bobby "Blue" Bland, Junior Parker, and Johnny Ace. She recorded a duet with Ace, "Yes Baby," and performed at the infamous Christmas Day show in 1954 where Ace died backstage in a game of Russian Roulette. While Thornton was a star on the R&B and blues circuit, her sound and her demeanor were too brash for the pop charts, and in 1956, Elvis Presley recorded a version of "Hound Dog" that featured a different arrangement and different lyrics. Presley's cover was a massive hit, and Thornton's recording was soon regarded as a footnote. As audiences in Texas became more fickle, she moved to California, settling in the San Francisco Bay area, where she played frequent club dates and toured throughout the state.
Thornton cut occasional one-off singles for a handful of R&B labels, but she didn't release an album until 1966, when archivist Chris Strachwitz brought out a pair of LPs on his Arhoolie label. Big Mama Thornton & the Chicago Blues Band was cut in a single day with Muddy Waters and his road band backing her, while In Europe was drawn from live recordings of her appearances with the 1965 American Folk Blues Festival tour, with Buddy Guy, Walter "Shaky" Horton, and Eddie Boyd as part of her backing band. In 1968, Arhoolie issued the album Ball and Chain, which featured two cuts by Thornton ("Ball and Chain" and "Wade in the Water") along with material from Lightnin' Hopkins and Larry Williams. "Ball and Chain" had been in legal limbo for several years -- she had originally recorded it for a small label called Bay-Tone Records, which opted not to release it but still owned the publishing rights, which prevented it from appearing until she re-recorded it for Arhoolie. By that time, Janis Joplin, a Big Mama Thornton fan who cited her as an inspiration, was singing the song with the band Big Brother & the Holding Company, and it was included on their 1968 album Cheap Thrills. That LP was a major hit, and while Thornton didn't receive much money as a result of Cheap Thrills' success, it helped her attract a new audience among rock fans who were exploring the work of seminal blues artists.
She died on July 25, 1984 at a rooming house in Los Angeles at the age of 57.
https://linktr.ee/blues.in.colour
#colourised #eddieboyd #buddyguy #lonesomejimmylee #fredbelow #blues #bluesguitarist #bluesmusic #bluesmusician #blueslegend #chicagoblues #1965 #americanhistory #americanfolkbluesfestival #bigmamathornton
13:11
3:39
2:02
0:59
