use a standard method of transcribing verses where the first two lines are alike or similar by adding a “(2x)” at the end of the first line, and following it with the third line thus:
I found my rooster this morning by looking at his comb. (2x)
You can look out now, pullets, it won’t be long.
This method ignores the idiosyncrasies that occur between Minnie’s various renderings of the same line, where line two is of the form, “awwwwww, by looking at his comb,” but it is otherwise textually faithful. Further, the (2x) system became an economic necessity for a book of this size. All songs appearing in the text without an author credit are by Memphis Minnie.
In all cases, “harp” refers to harmonica.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction to the New Edition
2. Woman with Guitar: The Rise of Memphis Minnie
6. “I Drink Anywhere I Please”
8. To Make Heard the Interior Voice
Locations of Memphis Minnie Nightclub Performances
A Discography of Memphis Minnie
Titles of LPs and CDs that Appear in the Discography
INTRODUCTION
TO THE NEW EDITION
When you write a biographical study of someone, you become the object of outpourings of collegiality. On numerous occasions, when they found new information on Memphis Minnie, fellow researchers passed along their discoveries to us. Without their help, this book could not have taken its current expanded shape.
The basic content of the book remains the same, but there have been many additions. We have added many more names and dates for Minnie’s nightclub and theater appearances; many new photos, including a previously unknown photo of Minnie; and new (and corrected) vital statistics about Minnie’s place of birth and early childhood.
We have brought the discography up to date, listing all the Memphis Minnie CDs (and LPs) that have been issued since the first discography went to press in 1992. We have included a selection of Minnie’s appearance on compilation CDs that also feature other artists, as well. Because Minnie’s CDs have become so numerous, we have supplied a separate CD/LP title list at the end of the discography.
FOREWORD
The iconic status now accorded Memphis Minnie as a feminist symbol and female potentate in a man’s world is nothing new to the corps of devotees that had already developed by the time Woman with Guitar was first published in 1992. But she is far more widely recognized as a heroine now than when she was known mainly among hardcore blues collectors and among musicians and audiences who knew of her during her performing years. I would argue that much of this new adulation can be traced back to Woman with Guitar. While the number of people who actually read the book and took up her cause may have been only a few thousand, Paul and Beth Garon’s treatise became exponentially important to a more general readership and music-buying audience, especially as the digital age progressed. Woman with Guitar served as a source point for reviewers (of the book and of her CDs), for liner note writers of the many CD compilations that have since appeared, and ultimately for the half a million hits that a Google search for the name Memphis Minnie will now yield on the Internet. And the analytical discussions
