Lizzie Douglas, born on June 3, 1897, and died on August 6, 1973, was also known as Memphis Minnie. She was a blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Her music career lasted more than 30 years. She recorded about 200 songs. Some of her most famous songs include "When the Levee Breaks," "Me and My Chauffeur Blues," "Bumble Bee," and "Nothing in Rambling."
Childhood
Douglas was born on June 3, 1897, likely in Tunica County, Mississippi. However, she said she was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and grew up in the Algiers neighborhood. She was the oldest of 13 brothers and sisters. Her parents, Abe and Gertrude Douglas, called her "Kid" when she was young, and her family used that name for her throughout childhood. She did not like being called Lizzie. When she began performing, she used the stage name Kid Douglas.
At age seven, Douglas and her family moved to Walls, Mississippi, which is south of Memphis, Tennessee. The next year, she received her first guitar as a Christmas gift. By age 10, she learned to play the banjo, and by 11, she learned to play the guitar. She started playing music at parties around that time. Later, the family moved to Brunswick, Tennessee. After her mother died in 1922, Abe Douglas returned to Walls, where he passed away in 1935.
Career
In 1910, when she was 13 years old, she left her home to live on Beale Street in Memphis. She performed on street corners for most of her teenage years and sometimes returned to her family’s farm when she needed money. Her performances on the sidewalk led to a tour of the South with the Ringling Brothers Circus from 1916 to 1920. Minnie’s early musical style was influenced by the Southern country blues, a tradition she had grown up with. As David Evan writes in Big Road Blues, musicians from the Mississippi Delta and other areas combined dance rhythms, melodic singing, and storytelling from Black rural culture. These elements can be heard in Minnie’s early guitar and vocal work. By changing and improving this style, she helped shape the country blues for future generations. She later returned to Beale Street, where the blues scene was lively, and earned a living by playing guitar and singing. She also worked as a prostitute to support herself.
In 1929, she began performing with Kansas Joe McCoy, her second husband. A talent scout for Columbia Records discovered them playing for dimes in front of a barber shop. They were given the names Kansas Joe and Memphis Minnie by a Columbia A&R man. Over the next few years, they recorded music together as a duet. In February 1930, they recorded the song “Bumble Bee” for the Vocalion label, a version they had already made for Columbia but had not yet released. The song became one of Minnie’s most popular recordings, and she eventually recorded five versions of it. Minnie and McCoy continued recording for Vocalion until August 1934, when they recorded a few sessions for Decca Records. Their final recording session together was for Decca in September 1934. They divorced in 1935.
During this time, Minnie’s public image challenged traditional ideas about how women performed in the blues. Julia Simon explains that Minnie created a strong and confident stage presence. She showed musical skill and independence, which went against the usual expectations for female blues performers. Her confident singing and powerful stage presence made her a role model for many female blues artists.
An event described in Big Bill Broonzy’s autobiography, Big Bill Blues, tells of a contest between Minnie and Broonzy in a Chicago nightclub on June 26, 1933. The prize was a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of gin. Each performer sang two songs. Broonzy sang “Just a Dream” and “Make My Getaway,” while Minnie won the prize with “Me and My Chauffeur Blues” and “Looking the World Over.” Paul and Beth Garon, in their book Woman with Guitar: Memphis Minnie’s Blues, suggest Broonzy’s story might have mixed details from contests that happened at different times, as some of Minnie’s songs were recorded in the 1940s, not the 1930s.
By 1935, Minnie had moved to Chicago and worked regularly with Lester Melrose, a record producer and talent scout. After her divorce from McCoy, she began trying new musical styles. In July 1935, she recorded four songs for Bluebird Records, returned to the Vocalion label in August, and recorded another session for Bluebird in October with Casey Bill Weldon, her first husband. By the end of the 1930s, she had recorded nearly 20 songs for Decca and eight for Bluebird. She also toured widely in the 1930s, mostly in the South.
In 1938, Minnie returned to Vocalion, this time with Charlie McCoy, Kansas Joe McCoy’s brother, playing mandolin. Around this time, she married Ernest Lawlars, known as Little Son Joe. They began recording together in 1939, with Son adding rhythmic support to Minnie’s guitar. They recorded for Okeh Records in the 1940s and continued working together throughout the decade. By 1941, Minnie started playing electric guitar. In May 1941, she recorded her most famous song, “Me and My Chauffeur Blues.” Her use of the electric guitar helped lead the change in blues music. Sonnet Retman describes her amplified playing as part of a new style called “Afro-Sonic modernity,” where musicians blended rural country blues with the electric sound. Her skill, strong rhythm, and use of amplification connected the acoustic traditions she grew up with to the postwar electric blues, inspiring younger musicians in Chicago. A follow-up session produced two more popular songs, “Looking the World Over” and Lawlars’ “Black Rat Swing” (released under the name “Mr. Memphis Minnie”). In the 1940s, Minnie and Lawlars performed at Chicago’s 708 Club, often with other musicians like Big Bill Broonzy, Sunnyland Slim, or Snooky Pryor. They also played at other well-known Chicago nightclubs. During the 1940s, Minnie and Lawlars performed together and separately in Chicago and Indiana. Minnie often played at “Blue Monday” parties at Ruby Lee Gatewood’s on Lake Street. The poet Langston Hughes, who saw her perform at the 230 Club on New Year’s Eve, 1942, described her “hard and strong voice” as becoming even stronger with amplification and compared the sound of her electric guitar to “a musical version of electric welders plus a rolling mill.”
Later in the 1940s, Minnie lived in Indianapolis and Detroit. She returned to Chicago in the early 1950s. By the late 1940s, clubs began hiring younger and cheaper musicians, and Columbia Records started dropping blues artists, including Memphis Minnie. Unable to adapt to changing musical tastes, she moved to smaller record labels, such as Regal, Checker, and J.O.B.
Later life and death
Minnie continued to record music into the 1950s, but her health began to get worse. As interest in her music decreased, she stopped performing and retired from her musical career. In 1957, she and Lawlars returned to Memphis. From time to time, she appeared on Memphis radio stations to support young blues musicians. In 1958, she performed at a memorial concert for Big Bill Broonzy. As the Garons wrote in Woman with Guitar, "She never stopped playing her guitar until she could no longer hold it." In 1960, she had a stroke that left her in a wheelchair. Lawlars died the next year, and Minnie had another stroke shortly after. She could not live on her Social Security money. Magazines wrote about her difficult situation, and readers sent her money for help. She spent her final years at the Jell Nursing Home in Memphis, where she died of a stroke in 1973. She is buried at the New Hope Baptist Church Cemetery in Walls, Mississippi. A headstone paid for by Bonnie Raitt was placed by the Mount Zion Memorial Fund on October 13, 1996, with 34 family members present, including her sister Bob. The ceremony was recorded by the BBC for broadcast. The inscription on the back of her gravestone reads:
Character and personal life
Minnie was known as a skilled professional and a self-reliant woman who took care of herself. She presented herself to the public as being feminine and ladylike, wearing expensive dresses and jewelry. However, she was assertive when needed and was not afraid to fight. Blues musician Johnny Shines said, "If any men tried to bother her, she would confront them immediately. She did not tolerate foolish behavior. She used anything she could get her hands on, such as a guitar, pocket knife, or pistol." Blues musician Homesick James noted that Minnie often chewed tobacco, even while singing or playing the guitar, and always had a cup nearby to spit into. Much of the music she created was based on her own life, as she expressed many details of her personal experiences through her songs.
Scholars have observed that Minnie’s confident behavior in her personal life matched her image as a musician. Simon argued that her decision to refuse following traditional expectations of how women should act helped her gain respect as a guitarist and leader. This view offers a different understanding of her life, focusing on her artistic and social choices rather than just her brave actions.
Minnie was married three times, though no marriage records have been found. Her first husband was Will Weldon, whom she likely married in the early 1920s. Her second husband was Kansas Joe McCoy, a guitarist and mandolin player, whom she married in 1929. They asked for a divorce in 1934. One reason given for their separation was McCoy’s jealousy of Minnie’s success in her career. Minnie was also reported to have lived with a man known as "Squirrel" during the mid- to late 1930s. Around 1938, she met guitarist Ernest Lawlars (Little Son Joe), who became her new musical partner. They married shortly after, and her marriage records from 1939 onward list her name as Minnie Lawlars. He wrote songs about her, including "Key to the World," in which he refers to her as "the woman I got now" and calls her "the key to the world."
Minnie was not religious and rarely attended church. She only went to church once, to watch a gospel group perform. She was baptized shortly before her death, likely to honor her sister Daisy Johnson. A house in Memphis where she once lived, at 1355 Adelaide Street, was torn down in the early 2010s.
Legacy
Memphis Minnie was an important musician who helped shape both country and early electric blues music. Scholars like Evans placed her in the Southern country blues tradition while highlighting her creativity. Retman noted her role in developing the sound of electric blues, explaining how her guitar playing connected Delta and Chicago blues styles. Simon emphasized her importance as one of the few women who had equal musical influence to men.
Memphis Minnie is often called "the most popular female country blues singer of all time." Big Bill Broonzy once said she could "play a guitar and sing as well as any man I’ve ever heard." During the 1960s, when interest in blues music grew again, her recordings were rediscovered and appreciated. She influenced later musicians, including Big Mama Thornton, Jo Ann Kelly, and Erin Harpe. In 1980, she was honored with a place in the Blues Foundation’s Hall of Fame.
The song "Me and My Chauffeur Blues" was recorded by Jefferson Airplane on their first album, with Signe Anderson singing. "Can I Do It for You" was covered by Donovan in 1965 as "Hey Gyp (Dig the Slowness)." A 1929 song by Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy, "When the Levee Breaks," was adapted by Led Zeppelin in 1971 with different lyrics and a new melody. "I’m Sailin’" was performed by Mazzy Star on their 1990 album She Hangs Brightly. Mazzy Star also recorded Minnie’s song "Bake My Biscuit," which appeared on their 1994 EP Fade Into You. The EP included three other Mazzy Star tracks: a version from an album, an outtake, and a performance of "Bake My Biscuit" by Hope Sandoval and David Roback. The EP credited "Bake My Biscuit" to "Memphis McCoy," the name of Minnie’s second husband and band partner. However, the EP listed the 1929 version of the song as having unknown authorship. Minnie’s family is now seeking royalties and permission from record companies and artists who used her music without approval. In 2007, a marker honoring Memphis Minnie was placed on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Walls, Mississippi.
Discography
Minnie's recordings show how her music changed from country to electric blues. Early songs like "Bumble Bee" and "When the Levee Breaks" reflect her background in Southern blue traditions. Later songs, such as "Me and My Chauffeur Blues," show the confident and direct lyrics that Simon notes in her work. Minnie's recordings from the 1940s, which used electric instruments, display the "scientific sound" Retman connects to the juke box era. These recordings also show how she influenced the growth of electric blues guitar.