Abstract: Thornton: The Life and Music. By Michael Sporke. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014. 200 pp (softcover). Preface, Epilogue, Appendices (Timeline, Selected Discography, Selection of TV Appearances, Films, DVDs, and Videos), Chapter Notes, Bibliography, Index. ISBN 978-0-7864-7759-2. $35 She sang with all the power and soul of classic blues singers like Bessie Smith and Memphis Minnie. She played the drums and harmonica, and even danced and performed comedy routines in her early career. She sang Hound Dog before Elvis Presley heard of the song and wrote Ball and Chain before Janis Joplin teamed up with Brother and the Holding Company. She triumphed in some of the most intimidating performance venues in the country and performed with so many important artists in twentieth-century blues and rock history that the list could go on for a while: just some of the names include Johnny Otis, B. B. King, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, the Count Basie Orchestra, Muddy Waters, Aretha Franklin, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Yet despite an incredibly successful musical career that lasted over forty years, Binnie Willie Mae Big Mama Thornton (1926-1984) has never had a full-length work that examined her career and performing history in detail. Michael Sporke's book, Thornton: The Life and Music, seeks to correct this oversight and assess the impact that she had on popular music in the twentieth century. Sporke's book proceeds chronologically through Thornton's life while allowing some deviations from the general timeline to provide context behind the issues, persons, industries, and movements that had a significant impact on Thornton's career. Sporke divides the book into chapters that align with the significant periods in her performing career: the early years and how she started performing in Atlanta; her travels to Houston and her recording of Hound Dog; her move from Texas to California and how her success at the 1964 Monterey Jazz Festival led to her performance at the German-based American Folk Blues Festival in 1965; the first of her European tours; how Joplin popularized Ball and Chain; her transition into rock music that coincided with managerial issues and the impact that those difficulties had on her career; her second European tour in 1972 and the toll that illness and alcohol started to take on her body; and finally her touring and performance work from the mid-seventies until her death in 1984. Throughout the book, Sporke provides in-depth background explanations that give often-crucial context to the performance details that remain the central focus. A reader using this text will learn about Thornton and her incredibly impactful career, but they will also begin to understand some of the ugly realities of race relations and their constraints and impact on African American performers during Thornton's career. Readers will also see the importance of lesser-known performance venues such as the Bronze Peacock and the Eldorado Ballroom in Houston and the chitlin [performing] circuit in the South, and they will also realize how the European love for jazz and blues revitalized Thornton's career. …
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-03-22
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 14
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