Jessie Mae Hemphill
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Biography
Jessie Mae Hemphill was an American singer-songwriter and electric guitarist who was born near Como and Senatobia, Mississippi, in 1923. She achieved early professional recognition in 1979 after being recorded by the ethnomusicologist David Evans and is famous for her mastery of the North Mississippi hill country blues tradition and for being a central figure in the genre's revival. Hemphill began playing guitar at age seven and performed in the fife-and-drum band led by her grandfather, Sid Hemphill. Her discography includes her debut studio recording She-Wolf (1981), released by the French label Disques Vogue, and Feelin' Good (1990). She received the W.C. Handy Award for best traditional female blues artist in 1987 and 1988, and Feelin' Good was named the best acoustic album of 1990. Following a stroke in 1993, she retired from playing guitar but continued to perform on the tambourine. In 2004, she released the collection Dare You to Do It Again, featuring gospel standards. Hemphill died in Memphis, Tennessee, in 2006 and was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2025.
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Albums
Top Tracks
- Track Popularity
- Tell Me You Love Me
- Loving in the Moonlight
- My Lord Do Just What He Say
- Overseas Blues
- Shake It, Baby
- Shake Your Booty (Shake It Baby)
- Shame On You
- She-Wolf
- Standing In My Doorway Crying
- Streamline Train
- Take Me Home With You, Baby
- All Night Boogie (Jessie's Boogie)
- Baby, Please Don't Go
- Black Cat Bone
- Boogie 'Side the Road
- Brokenhearted Blues
- Bullyin' Well
- Cowgirl Blues
- Crawdad Hole
- Feelin' Good
- Get Right, Church
- Go Back To Your Used To Be
- Hard Times
- He's a Mighty Good Leader
