Big Mama | from Facebook and Don’s Tunes - BALL & CHAIN

 

Go on click it anyway . . . . it works tha’ knows!

Big Mama Thornton performs Ball and Chain with Buddy Guy's Blues Band.

Thornton is a mellow mountain of a woman, almost six feet tall and topping two hundred pounds. She dwarfs the men in the band, but they seem to respect her for her size, her dignity, her burden. As she sings, they keep a soulful Southern church cadence with their feet, side to side. Her voice is beautiful, but not pretty.

Sittin’ by my window, whoa, I were looking out at the rain . . .

She is regal and dignified in the sturdy blue pin-striped suit of indeterminate gender that appears tailored just for her, with a paisley ascot, a black fur toque, and her beloved rhinestone chandelier earrings. She even wears the two scars on her brow like scythe-shaped jewels, and she is beautiful. But she is not pretty. She draws her power from some old reservoir of human authority beyond the usual repertoires of romantic pain common to blues chanteuses: Why you want to do this mean thing to me? Thornton makes it clear: she is not unacquainted with human suffering, but she has no intention of letting it get the upper hand. Instead, she does what all blues greats do: she telegraphs endurance and force to whomever out there in TV land might need it at the moment. This is blues perfection. This is what this song was supposed to sound like, before it became Janis Joplin’s signature anthem to existential dread. “Ball and Chain” is irrevocably Southern in spirit. - By Cynthia Shearer

from Don’s Tunes

Big Mama Thornton and that song - Leiber and Stoller ‘HOUND DOG’ 1952/3

MORE ABOUT BIG MAMA 

Big Mama Thornton and T-Bone Walker at the 1969 Ann Arbor Blues Festival 

Photo by Willa Davis

"The recording of “Hound Dog” became one of the many legends, rumours, about Big Mama Thornton’s career when, by 1956, the rock ‘n’ roll age was already universal. Elvis Presley recorded “Hound Dog” to international acclaim. The Presley record spurred a number of lawsuits over publishing rights, and Big Mama Thornton would, for the rest of her life, tell how Elvis got rich and famous with “her” song. But to set it straight, Mike Stoller and Jerry Lieber wrote “Hound Dog” especially for Big Mama. 

Jerry Lieber remembers:

Absolutely, the afternoon we saw her, Johnny Otis told us to come down to his garage in the back of his house, where he used to rehearse. He wanted us to listen to his people and see if we could write some tunes for them. We saw Big Mama and she knocked me cold. She looked like the biggest, baddest, saltiest chick you would ever see. And she was mean, a “lady bear” as they used to call ‘em. She must have been 350 pounds and she had all these scars all over her face. 

I had to write a song for her that basically said “Go f--k yourself” but how do you do it without actually saying it?

And how to do it telling a story? I couldn’t just have a song full of expletives, hence

the “Hound Dog.” 

Mike Stoller adds, “’Right, ‘You ain’t nothing but a motherf----er.’ She was a wonderful blues singer with a great moaning style, but it was as much her appearance as her blues style that influenced the writing of ‘Hound Dog’ and the idea that we wanted her to growl it, which she rejected at first, her thing was ‘Don’t tell me how to sing no song.”

from an essay by Michael Sporke 

and of course it gives me the opportunity to play my favourite version from film of the day (as ever check the line up on the band!)

Willie Mae Thornton (December 11, 1926 – July 25, 1984), She was the first to record Leiber and Stoller's "Hound Dog", in 1952, which became her biggest hit, staying seven weeks at number one on the Billboard R&B chart in 1953 and selling almost two million copies. Thornton's other recordings included the original version of "Ball and Chain", which she wrote. Her recording of "Hound Dog", written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller in 1952, and later recorded by Elvis Presley, reached Number 1 on the Rhythm & Blues Records chart. According to Maureen Mahon, a music professor at New York University, "the song is seen as an important beginning of rock-and-roll, especially in its use of the guitar as the key instrument

Willie Mae 'Big Mama' Thornton - Hound Dog (Lieber and Stoller)

 

Hound Dog and  Down Home Shakedown 

Big Mama Thornton performing at the Berkeley Folk Music Festival,  1970

Mike Stoller: Johnny Otis said, 

“Are you familiar with Willie Mae Thornton?” I said, no. 

He said, “Well, I gotta do a session with her, so you better get Jerry and come over to my place and listen to it, because I’m gonna need some songs.” 

So we went over, and she knocked us out. We went back to my house and, in about 10 or 15 minutes, we wrote “Hound Dog” and took it back. When it was just written lyrics on a piece of paper, she started to croon it. So then we had to perform it for her, as I played the piano and Jerry sang. The band was cracking up, to hear Jerry singing as if he were a blues singer, let’s put it that way. But she got it.

The next day we went into the studio to record, at Radio Recorders Annex (in Hollywood), and as we were walking in, Jerry said, 

“You know, she ought to growl it.” And I said, “Yeah… Why don’t you tell her?” And he said, “Why don’t you tell her?” [Laughs.] 

Anyway, one of us said, “Uh, Big Mama, you know, you could growl it,” and she said, “Don’t be telling me how to sing the blues!” 

[The version Leiber and Stoller relay in their memoir has a little more lewdness to the response.] But the first take was great. The second take was perfect. She growled it both times.

While Stoller came to admire Presley’s talents, he never was all that fond of his take on “Hound Dog.” 

“It didn’t have the groove that Big Mama’s record had, which was fantastic,” says Stoller. 

Neither Leiber and Stoller nor Thornton ever got paid much for her version of the song, and Stoller acknowledges that as a tragedy, along with the general lack of cultural recognition for her. 

“That’s true of not only Big Mama, but of many black performers and songwriters,” he says, noting that he and Leiber “did, on occasion, send her some funds.”

- Variety

WILLIE MAE "BIG MAMA" THORNTON

 BIG MAMA THORNTON

"Hound Dog" +

(she wrote it! well made it her own at least, she lived it (!) for it is claimed by Johnny Otis and simultaneously by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller who were too young to claim the royalties until some youngster, a white truck driver, called Elvis Presley made it a hit!)

Things being a bit thin on the ground ROIO wise we will look back at some blues and hence Rock 'n' Roll classics. Here's this worth a read about the legendary and fearsome voiced Big Mama Thornton

“Big Mama” Thornton was a fiercely independent woman; sometimes described as intimidating because of her physical frame and demeanour. Her personality may well have been a result of nature and nurture, given her difficult childhood and early adult years. In the context of the 1950s for a black female singer to break from the gender stereotype and stand out in a male dominated industry, a no-nonsense disposition was surely essential. In many ways, Thornton was a pioneer. 

 Thornton recorded the 12-bar blues “Hound Dog” under the studio supervision of song-writing duo  Mike Leiber and Jerry Stoller. Mike Stoller was approached by Johnny Otis, who’d been given the task by Don Robey to find a hit for Thornton. When they first met, Leiber and Stoller found her a formidable character:

“In her combat boots and oversize overalls, she was a bit frightening. There was something monstrous about Big Mama, but I wasn’t looking at her that way. We saw her as the perfect instrument for deadly blues that we relished. We knocked the song out in a couple of minutes; it just happened like lightening. We knew as they say in the south, that this dog would hunt. 'Hound Dog' had just the right amount of country-funk that the lady embodied.”

It reached number one in the Billboard R&B charts in 1953 and stayed there for seven weeks. The song was a perfect vehicle for Big Mama’s growling vocal delivery. Half a million copies were sold in the first three months alone. There was little financial reward however; a trend running throughout the most of her career. Even Leiber and Stoller didn’t initially benefit. Johnny Otis put his name to the song as composer and had informed Don Robey that he had power of attorney to sign for Leiber and Stoller, which was untrue. As Leiber and Stoller were underage, their parents signed a new contract with Robey, and a cheque was eventually received for $1,200. It bounced. Things were remedied for the song-writing duo three years later however, when a young white rock ‘n’ roll singer from Memphis recorded the song and “Hound Dog” hit the stratosphere. 

 - Soul Source Magazine 

Photo by LYNN ADLER

Remembering BIG MAMA THORNTON

[December 11, 1926 – July 25, 1984]

Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton only notched one national hit in her lifetime, but it was a true monster. HOUND DOG held down the top slot on Billboard's R&B charts for seven long weeks in 1953. Alas, Elvis Presley's rocking 1956 cover was even bigger, effectively obscuring Thornton's chief claim to immortality.

"That's a damned shame, because Thornton's menacing growl was indeed something special," wrote Bill Dahl for AllMusic.

In 1952, while working with Peacock artist Johnny Otis, she recorded "Hound Dog", the first record produced by its writers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. 

"We wanted her to growl it," Stoller said, which she did. 

Otis played drums, after the original drummer was unable to play an adequate part. 

The record sold more than half a million copies, and went to number one on the R&B chart, helping to bring in the dawn of rock 'n' roll. Although the record made Thornton a star, she saw little of the profits.

Thornton's success with "Hound Dog" was followed three years later by Elvis Presley recording his hit version of the song.

His recording at first annoyed Leiber who wrote, "I have no idea what that rabbit business is all about. The song is not about a dog, it's about a man, a freeloading gigolo."

But Elvis' version sold ten million copies, so today few fans know that "Hound Dog" began as "an anthem of black female power."

"The hefty belter Big Mama Thornton first opened her pipes in church but soon embraced the blues. She toured with Sammy Green's Hot Harlem Revue during the 1940s. Thornton was ensconced on the Houston circuit when Peacock Records boss Don Robey signed her in 1951. She debuted on Peacock with "Partnership Blues" that year, backed by trumpeter Joe Scott's band."

But it was her third Peacock date with Johnny Otis' band that proved the winner. With Pete Lewis laying down some truly nasty guitar behind her, Big Mama shouted "Hound Dog," a tune whose authorship remains a bone of contention to this day (both Otis and the team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller claim responsibility), and soon hit the road a star.

But it was an isolated incident. Though Thornton cut some fine Peacock follow-ups -- "I Smell a Rat," "Stop Hoppin' on Me," "The Fish," "Just like a Dog" -- through 1957, she never again reached the hit parade. Even Elvis was apparently unaware of her; he was handed "Hound Dog" by Freddie Bell, a Vegas lounge rocker. Early-'60s 45s for Irma, Bay-Tone, Kent, and Sotoplay did little to revive her sagging fortunes, but a series of dates for Arhoolie that included her first vinyl rendition of "Ball and Chain" in 1968 and two albums for Mercury in 1969-1970 put her back in circulation (Janis Joplin's overwrought but well-intentioned cover of "Ball and Chain" didn't hurt either). Along with her imposing vocals, Thornton began to emphasize her harmonica skills during the 1960s.

Thornton was a tough cookie. She dressed like a man and took no guff from anyone, even as the pounds fell off her once-ample frame and she became downright scrawny during the last years of her life. 

Medical personnel found her lifeless body in an L.A. rooming house in 1984.

Text found by Colouring The Past on Facebook!

 

Ball and Chain with Buddy Guy's Band

Live in Eugene Oregon 1971

BIG MAMA!

Elvis who . . . ?

On this day in music history: August 13, 1952 - “Hound Dog” by Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton is recorded. Written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, it is the biggest hit for the Alabama born Rhythm & Blues singer. Recorded at Radio Recorders in Hollywood, CA, the track features legendary R&B bandleader Johnny Otis (featured on drums) along with members of his band. Otis (“Willie And The Hand Jive”) co-produces the record with Leiber and Stoller. Released on Houston, TX based Peacock Records in March 1953, the single is an instant smash, spending  seven weeks at number one on the Billboard R&B Best Sellers chart selling nearly two million copies. Four years and one week to the day that the original version is recorded, Elvis Presley’s cover version of the song hits number one on the Pop chart. In time, “Hound Dog” is regarded as one of the most important and influential rhythm and blues songs in music history. Big Mama Thornton’s version of “Hound Dog” is inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 2013.