Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters (Music Matters)
A queer, Black "biography in essays" about the performer who gave us "Hound Dog," "Ball and Chain," and other songs that changed the course of American music.
Work Information
A queer, Black "biography in essays" about the performer who gave us "Hound Dog," "Ball and Chain," and other songs that changed the course of American music.
A queer, Black "biography in essays" about the performer who gave us "Hound Dog," "Ball and Chain," and other songs that changed the course of American music.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Univ of Texas Pr
- Published
- 2023-09-12
- Pages
- 207 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 12.7 x 3.81 x 20.32 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781477321188
- ISBN-10
- 1477321187
- Price
- 4944 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Arts & Photography/Music/Musical Genres/Blues
A queer, Black “biography in essays” about the performer who gave us “Hound Dog,” “Ball and Chain,” and other songs that changed the course of American music. Born in Alabama in 1926, raised in the church, appropriated by white performers, buried in an indigent’s grave—Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton's life events epitomize the blues—but Lynnée Denise pushes past the stereotypes to read Thornton’s life through a Black, queer, feminist lens and reveal an artist who was an innovator across her four-decade-long career. Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters “samples” elements of Thornton’s art—and, occasionally, the author’s own story—to create “a biography in essays” that explores the life of its subject as a DJ might dig through a crate of records. Denise connects Thornton’s vaudevillesque performances in Sammy Green’s Hot Harlem Revue to the vocal improvisations that made “Hound Dog” a hit for Peacock Records (and later for Elvis Presley), injecting music criticism into what’s often framed as a cautionary tale of record-industry racism. She interprets Thornton’s performing in men’s suits as both a sly, Little Richard–like queering of the Chitlin Circuit and a simple preference for pants over dresses that didn’t have a pocket for her harmonica. Most radical of all, she refers to her subject by her given name rather than "Big Mama," a nickname bestowed upon her by a white man. It's a deliberate and crucial act of reclamation, because in the name of Willie Mae Thornton is the sound of Black musical resilience.
Lynnée Denise is an artist, writer, and DJ. She was the Sterling Brown ’22 Distinguished Visiting Professor of Africana Studies at Williams College, and she is currently a doctoral student in the Department of Visual Culture at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Reviews
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Beyond a biography: this is narrative storytelling of the highest order
"Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters" is a master class on how to tend to legacy with the sheer depth, intimacy, truth, and care that someone like Willie Mae deserves. As an avid reader and fellow writer, I am most moved by writers who understand the economy of words and how to tell a story with the narrative power/poignancy that swells the heart with every page, and this book and author did that for me both times I've read it (it's that good). It's not just in how Lynnée Denise languages Willie Mae's story with rigor, cultural context, and beauty: it's in how she powerfully folds in her own amidst a generations-long history of Black musical contribution that she so stunningly wove together within each chapter. We do not just learn about Willie Mae: we learn about everyone connected to her, every place she graced her music with, every career that reached success because of her, and what the music world has been since she departed from this one. Along with anecdotal stories from the author's life that honor Willie Mae's with deep reverence. I now not only know about Willie Mae: I care about her story and I want justice for her and her vital contribution to music as a Black musician/songwriter who was instrumental to the careers of so many in the industry who took advantage of her. Reading "Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters" has deepened what I thought a biography is supposed to be by showing me what more a biography is capable of when in the hands of a writer who transcends the surface level-timeline-induced biographical expectations and goes straight to the heart of the matter. I'm still reeling at how much this book captured with only so many pages, but that's what gifted writers do. That's the highest order I'm talking about.