This timeline was created to compliment the March 24, 2016 discussion, Mothers of Invention. Presented as part of Apollo Live Wire, the discussion looked at the blues and gospel origins of Rock & Roll, the trend of the hidden influences in American pop culture, and the hidden histories of black female identity and cultural appropriation. The conversation was curated and led by singer/songwriter Tamar-kali.;xNLx;;xNLx;In addition to Rainey, Smith, Douglas, Tharpe, and Thornton, the timeline recognizes other women who were their contemporaries and/or who impacted the scope and trajectory of music during the early to mid 20th century.;xNLx;;xNLx;Far from conclusive, this timeline is just one of many rungs on the ladder to full appreciation of the contributions of African American women to music and culture.;xNLx;;xNLx;The conversation continues...
Ma Rainey is born in Columbus Gerogia as Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett
Bessie Smith is born in Chattanooga Tennessee
Cox was born Ida Prather on February 26, 1896 in Toccoa, Habersham County, Georgia
Memphis Minnie is born in Algiers Louisiana as Lizzie Douglas.
Victoria Regina Spivey is born October 15, 1906 in Houston, Texas
Rosetta Tharpe was born in Cotton Plant, Arkansas as Rosetta Nubin
Mamie Smith is the first African American woman to record a record. On February 14, 1920, Mamie Smith cut "That Thing Called Love" and "You Can't Keep A Good Man Down" on Okeh Records, in New York City, after African-American songwriter and bandleader Perry Bradford persuaded Fred Hagar. The record marked the first time that a black blues singer was recorded; the musicians however were all white.
In 1923, Rainey signed a contract with Paramount Records.
In 1923, Smith signed a contract with Columbia Records. "Down Hearted Blues" sold over 800,000 copies
Ida Cox's 1924 recording "Wild Women Don't Have the Blues" is seen as a feminist call to women to move away from being male-defined and male-dependent as stated in The Feminist Classroom: Dynamics of Gender, Race, and Privilege by Frances A. Maher and Mary Kay Thompson Tetreault published in 1994
In 1924 Ma Rainey recorded "Jelly Bean Blues", "Countin' the Blues" and "See, See Rider" with Louis Armstrong and Fletcher Henderson. The song is inducted into the Library of Congress 2004 National Recording Registry on April 5 2005.
In 1926, Victorisa Spivey signed with Okeh Records. Her first recording was "Black Snake Blues" Here, she sings her 1926 hit, at the 1963 The American Folk Blues Festival.
Big Mama Thornton is born in Ariton, Alabama as Willie Mae Thornton
In 1929, Victoria Spivey was offered a role in King Vidor's musical Film "Hallelujah!". Hallelujah was one of the first all-black films by a major studio.
In 1929 a Columbia Records A&R executive renamed Douglas, Memphis Minnie
Victoria Spivey's "The Raisin’ Cain" tent show proved so popular that in 1929 it became the first show associated with the Theater Owners’ Booking Association circuit to open at the famed Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. *African American theater buildings : an illustrated historical directory, 1900-1955 by Eric Ledell Smith.
In February 1930, Memphis Minnie recorded "Bumble Bee" with her husband and musical partner Kansas Joe McCoy for Vocalion Records. "Bumble Bee" became one of Minnie's most popular songs.
Bessie Smith sings at the Apollo Theater in 1934
On September 26, 1937, Smith dies after being critically injured in a car accident while traveling along U.S. Route 61 between Memphis, Tennessee, and Clarksdale, Mississippi.
Tharpe took spiritual music into the mainstream and helped to generate the rise of pop–gospel with her 1939 recording "This Train"
Ma Rainey dies from a from a heart attack on December 22, 1939.
Tharpe's song "Strange Things Happening Every Day" became the first gospel record to reach the R&B top 10 in 1945.
Janis Joplin, the white blues singer, is usually credited as the first female “stadium rocker.” Yet the phenomenal success of Rosetta’s 1951 wedding concert at Griffith Stadium demonstrates how incomplete popular memory can be, especially when it comes to gospel, which has never enjoyed the broad appeal of jazz or rhythm and blues. D.C. Gayle Wald says that they billed the event as a wedding concert and sold tickets. "Fans not only showed up and paid money, but they brought gifts. She played her electric guitar from center field...in her wedding dress."
Big Mama Thornton performs at the Apollo Theater
Big Mama Thornton is the first to record Leiber and Stoller's "Hound Dog" in 1952. The song spent seven weeks at number one on the Billboard R&B charts in 1953. Elvis Presley's 1956 cover of "Hound Dog" was simultaneously No. 1 on the US pop, country, and R&B charts in 1956, and it topped the pop chart for 11 weeks — a record that stood for 36 years. Presley's 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1988, and it is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll" Thornton stated: "That song sold over two million records. I got one check for $500 and never saw another."[46][47] In 1984, she told Rolling Stone, "Didn't get no money from them at all. Everybody livin' in a house but me. I'm just livin."[
As Thornton gained success, she also became famous for her transgressive gender expression. She often dressed as a man in her performances, wearing items such as work shirts and slacks. Thornton did not care about the thoughts of others and "was openly gay and performed risque songs unabashedly." Her improvisation was a notable part of her performance. She often enters call-and-response exchanges with her band, inserting confident and notably subversive remarks. Her play with gender and sexuality set the stage for later rock 'n' roll artists' own plays with sexuality. -Presley, Katie. "ADVENTURES IN FEMINISTORY: WOMEN SING THE BLUES". Bitch Media. -Mahon, Maureen (2011). "Listening for Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton's Voice: The Sound of Race and Gender Transgressions in Rock and Roll"
In 1961,Victoria Spivey and jazz historian Len Kunstadt founded Spivey Records. They featured recording by Muddy Waters, Big Joe Williams, Memphis Slim, Louis Armstrong among others. On March 2, 1962, Bob Dylan contributed harmonica and backing vocals to a recording session featuring Big Joe Williams. These tracks appeared on Spivey LP 1004, Three Kings And The Queen.
1n 1965 Janis Joplin covers Bessie Smith's Black Mountain Blues
Ida Cox dies of cancer on November 10, 1967, aged 71 in Knoxville Tennessee.
In 1968, Thornton records "Ball 'n' Chain" (written in 1961). Although her recording did not appear on the record charts, "Ball 'n' Chain" has become one of Thornton's best-known songs, due to recordings by Janis Joplin.
In Rolling Stone magazine, Jan Hodenfield, reporting on the 1969 Newport Folk Festival writes that Big Mama Thornton, "made the concert shell her own splendid opera house. In a yellow beret, a plaid work shirt and truck driver's trousers, Big Mama brought sinuous hips and hauteur to "Rock Me Baby," "Mother-in-Law" and "Ball and Chain" and 200-plus pounds of delicate bumps and grinds to the song "I made Elvis Presley rich on— Hound Dog."
"When the Levee Breaks" written and first recorded by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie in 1929 is re-worked by English rock group Led Zeppelin as the last song on Led Zeppelin IV, released in 1971. Rock Critic Robert Christgau cited Led Zeppelin's version of "When the Levee Breaks" as their fourth album's greatest achievement. "I think the triumph here is When the Levee Breaks. As if by sorcery, the quasi-parodic overstatement and oddly cerebral mood of Led Zep's blues recastings is at once transcended (that is, this really sounds like a blues), and apotheosized (that is, it has the grandeur of a symphonic crescendo)..." In 2015, Led Zeppelin's version of "When the Levee Breaks" was prominently featured in the trailer for the movie The Big Short, and plays over the film's closing credits Works published in 1929 would have had to renew their copyright in either 1956 or 1957, i.e. at least 27 years after it was first published / registered but not later than 31 December in the 28th year. As it was not renewed, it entered the public domain on 1 January 1958.
Memphis Minnie spends her last years in poverty as friends and fans raise funds for her care. She dies of a stoke August 6, 1973 (aged 76) in Memphis, Tennessee.
On October 9, 1973, Tharpe died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as a result of a second stroke. She was buried in Northwood Cemetery in Philadelphia.
Spivey dies in New York on October 3, 1976, at the age of 69, from an internal haemorrhage
Johnny Cash often claimed to be influenced by Tharpe. In 1979 Johnny Cash covers Tharpe's Strange Things Happening Everyday"
Bessie Smith is inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1980.
Memphis Minnie is inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1980.
In 1984, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, written by August Wilson, premiers at themEugene O'Neill Theater Center Waterford, Connecticut. The play is a fictionalized account of the recording of her song of the same name in December 1927. Set in Chicago in the 1920s, the play explores issues of race, art, religion and the historic exploitation of black recording artists by white producers. The play won the 1985 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play and was nominated for the 1985 Tony Award for best play. In 2016 The National Theatre in London revived the show to great critical acclaim, garnering a Laurence Olivier nomination for best revival. The production starred O-T Fagbenle as Levee and Sharon D Clarke as Ma Rainey.
Big Mama Thornton dies of a heart attack in Los Angeles on July 25, 1984, at the age of 57. That year, she was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame.
In 1989 Bessie Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
In 1990 Ma Rainey is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
In 1994, the U.S. Post Office issued a Rainey 29-cent commemorative postage stamp.
In 1994, the U.S. Post Office issued a Rainey 29-cent commemorative postage stamp.
Angela Y. Davis publishes Blues with her book titled BLUES LEGACIES AND BLACK FEMINISM Gertrude ''Ma'' Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday
The United States Postal Service issued a 32-cent commemorative stamp to honor Tharpe on July 15, 1998.
In 2004, the non-profit Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls, named for Big Mama Thornton, was founded to offer a musical education to girls from ages eight to eighteen.
In 2004, "See See Rider Blues" (recorded in 1924) is Grammy Hall of Fame, and is included by the National Recording Preservation Board in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry in 2004.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe's 1944 version of the Negro spiritual "Down By The Riverside" is selected for the American Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2004
Bob Dylan is inspired by Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy's song "When the Levee Breaks," in his 2006 version of the record "The Levee's Gonna Break"
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