people:
Big Mama Thornton
(1926 – 1984) Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton was described by songwriter Jerry Stoller as “a bit frightening,” “a force of nature” and “absolutely magnificent.” With her larger-than-life personality and spicy take on the Blues she was one of the R&B performers that helped usher in the coming of Rock and Roll. Like many R&B performers of her generation, Thornton started singing in church as a youngster. By her teens she was playing drums, guitar and harmonica and developing her earthy singing voice playing shows around her home base of Montgomery, Ala. She spent much of the 1940s touring the South...