Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton was an American singer and songwriter of blues and R&B. While Thornton’s birth certificate states that she was born in Ariton, Alabama, in an interview with Arhoolie Records producer Chris Strachwitz, she claimed Montgomery, Alabama, as her birthplace. She was introduced to music in a Baptist church, where her father was a minister and her mother a singer. Thornton said: “I used to go to church a lot, but I didn’t do too much singing in church.” She was later introduced to gospel music by the church and this heavily influenced her artistic side. Thornton’s talent was self-taught. She said: “My singing comes from my experience… My own experience. I never had no one teach me nothing. I never went to school for music or nothing. I taught myself to sing and to blow harmonica and even to play drums by watching other people! I can’t read music, but I know what I’m singing! I don’t sing like nobody but myself”.
Thornton’s talent was discovered in 1940 when she was 14 years old. Diamond Teeth Mary, the half-sister of one of her early idols Bessie Smith, encouraged her to enter a talent contest after having heard Thornton singing while working a side-job on a garbage truck. 14-year-old Thornton left home, travelling with the show between different cities in Alabama and Georgia. Thornton described the revue as “a stage show, like, playing in theatres… dancers, chorus girls, comedians, singers”. Originally hired as a dancer, singer and comedienne, Thornton quickly became known as the “New Bessie Smith” for her vocal talent. Thornton left Green’s show in 1948 over a money dispute, about which she said: “I travelled with them for quite a few years, and I went to Houston, Texas in ’48. We played there and then we left. As a matter of fact, I quit the show in ’48… They owed me a little, quite a bit of money and they wouldn’t pay it, and I just got tired”.
In 1950 she signed a five-year recording contract with Robey’s Peacock Records. Her first Peacock record “No Jody For Me / Let Your Tears Fall Baby” was a local hit in the Houston area, but did not catch on nationally. Thornton needed additional income to live, so she started shining shoes to get by. In 1952, Don Robey struck a deal with impresario Johnny Otis, allowing Peacock Records artists who had not broken through to national success to travel with Otis’ California Rhythm and Blues Caravan to gain experience and exposure. The deal included recording the artists in Los Angeles and giving the recordings to Robey for distribution. Thornton was one of the artists Otis selected. Thornton was the first to record Leiber and Stoller’s “Hound Dog”, in 1952, which was written for her. It became Thornton’s biggest hit, selling over 500,000 copies and staying seven weeks at number one on the Billboard R&B chart in 1953. According to New York University music professor Maureen Mahon, “the song is seen as an important beginning of rock-and-roll, especially in its use of the guitar as the key instrument”.
In 1961 Thornton wrote another signature song, “Ball And Chain”. The song relates the feelings of a woman who has been mistreated by her partner. Thornton assigned the song’s copyright to Bay-Tone Records, a small, independent San Francisco record company in 1961. Bay-Tone released two of Thornton’s singles, including “You Did Me Wrong” b/w “Big Mama’s Blues”. However, the label chose not to release her “Ball And Chain” recording and instead held on to the copyright. Throughout her musical journey Thornton wrote a lot of blues songs, like “Ball and Chain,” which with time became famed and well known through Janis Joplin’s presentations. This caused Thornton to once again miss out on the publishing royalties when her song was recorded by another artist and became a hit. During her later efforts to secure the royalties from the song, Thornton described how she had written the song 9 years before she recorded it, saying: “I was singing that way before I recorded it.”
Though later recordings of her songs by other artists sold millions of copies, she was denied royalties by not holding the publishing copyrights to her creativity. Thornton died of a heart attack and liver disorders, penniless in a boarding-house in Los Angeles, California, and was buried in a shared pauper’s grave. In 2024, Thornton was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the musical influence category.
