Badass Black Women History Month: Celebrating 28 Black Women Who Said, “Fuck it, I’ll Do It!”
Day 12: Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton
Black women invented rock and roll. While Sister Rosetta Tharpe is most often given credit as the “godmother of rock and roll,” I want to focus on Big Mama Thornton. Born in Alabama in 1926, Thornton is responsible for some of the biggest songs in rock and roll history. She was also openly gay as hell and pushed the boundaries of gender expression. She crossdressed and blatantly sang about sleeping with women. She paved the way for your favorites like Prince and David Bowie to do the same.
Thornton was loud, messy and did what she wanted. At a time when most black female singers were expected to have the style and grace of people like Billie Holiday or Etta James, Big Mama refused to be anything but herself. Even though she had the range to “sing pretty,” she chose to sing in a loud, abrasive voice. She once said, “I like to put myself into whatever I’m doin’ so I can feel it.” She refused to just do covers and made every song she sang her own.
Thornton’s biggest hit was “Hound Dog,” which stayed seven weeks at number one on the Billboard R&B chart in 1953. Her version would be overshadowed however when Elvis Presley stole it. Similarly, Thornton’s version of “Ball and Chain” would also be eclipsed by Janis Joplin stealing the song in the 60s. Thornton did not receive compensation from Presley or Joplin––they literally paid the black woman who created their music in “exposure.” While Thornton was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, she never reached the mainstream success she deserved. Why deal with a loud, big gay black woman when you can just have white people steal her songs?
Thornton would go on to perform until her death in 1984 at the age of 57.
“My singing comes from my experience.…My own experience. I never had no one teach me nothin’. I never went to school for music or nothin’. I taught myself to sing and to blow harmonica and even to play drums by watchin’ other people! I can’t read music, but I know what I’m singing! I don’t sing like nobody but myself.” - Big Mama Thornton
[image: facebook exchange where an anonymous user opines: i am not on obamacare. my health insurance is through the aca (affordable care act) which was what they had to come up with before obamacare crashed and burned as bad as it did. so i am going to be fine.]
Are y'all still upset about punching Nazis? Y'all still gonna equate hate speech with free speech and validate literal FUCKING NAZIS?
I saw this a few hours ago and made the following facebook status about it:
This is the man who asked “are Jews people”
This is the man who Heil’d an entire room of White Supremacists
This is the man who founded the modern neo-nazi (“alt-right”) movement
This is the man whose Master’s thesis showed “a clear interest in radical traditionalist right-wing German philosophy, a semi-fascist type thing.” (his own words)
Concentration camps and the Final Solution has been on this man’s mind long before he was ever punched by antifascists. Don’t buy this victim-blaming propaganda. ***Richard Spencer was punched because he wants to see me dying in Auschwitz, he does not want to see me dying in Auschwitz because he was punched a few days ago***
