Episode 47: Willie Mae Thornton (Rock Me Mama)

Before the glam of the 1980s, the funk of the 1970s, the counterculture of the 1960s, and the birth of rock & roll in the 1950s, a group of rag tag blues performers were revolutionizing the music industry. Genre blending and gender bending, they introduced a new kind of style and performance that would inspire American culture for decades to come. Their contributions have long been overlooked and many would received little in the way of compensation or recognition during their lifetimes.

 

One of these trendsetters was a woman named Willie Mae Thornton. Born to a church going family in Alabama, she would begin her career in the industry at the tender age of 14. But she would quickly grow into one of the most tenacious and talented blues singer of her generation. Today she is considered to be a foremother of the rock & roll genre. But during her life a pernicious mixture of racism, sexism and classism would keep her mostly excluded from the limelight and fortune she was due.