Jessie Mae Hemphill | Artist
Jessie Mae Hemphill was an American blues guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist born 1923 in Como, Mississippi. She specialized in the North Mississippi hill country blues traditions of her family and regional heritage, and was one of the earliest female electric guitarists. Hemphill was born near Como and Senatobia, Mississippi, in the northern Mississippi hill country, just east of the Mississippi Delta. She began playing the guitar at the age of seven. She also played drums in local fife-and-drum bands, beginning with the band led by her paternal grandfather, Sid Hemphill. Aside from playing in 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 she was recorded in 1979. Her first recordings were field recordings made by the blues researcher George Mitchell in 1967 and the ethnomusicologist David Evans in 1973, but they were not released. She was then known as Jessie Mae Brooks, using the surname from a brief early marriage. Hemphill's recording career started in 1981 with her first full-length album She-Wolf which was licensed from High Water Records and released by the French label Disques Vogue. The French label Black & Blue Records released other recordings by her. Hemphill played concerts across the United States and in other countries, including France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and Canada. In 1987 and 1988 she received the W. C. Handy Award for best traditional female blues artist. In 1987 she made her New York debut, accompanied by Evans and Walter Perkins. Her first American full-length album, Feelin' Good, released in 1990, won a W.C. Handy Award for best acoustic album. All her albums are recommended: She Wolf (1981), Feelin' Good (1990), Mississippi Blues Festival (2004), and the archival releases Get Right Blues (2005) and Run Get My Shotgun (2019). In 1993 Hemphill had a stroke, which paralyzed her left side, preventing her from playing guitar; she retired from her blues career but continued to play by accompanying her band on the tambourine. Hemphill's only TV appearance was in the early 1980's when she performed in a drum group with Abe Young and fife-and-drum band veteran Othar Turner for the television program Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.
Artist Website : wikipedia/Jessie_Mae_Hemphill
Featured Albums: Jessie Mae Hemphill
Related Artists: Sid Hemphill
