MAE GLOVER
Born September 9, 1907 in Columbia, Tennessee, Lillie Mae Glover ran away from home in 1920 when she was only 13 to join the Tom Simpson Traveling Medicine Show. Her father was a preacher and she wanted to sing the blues, so that was that. She worked in several road shows before landing in Memphis, Tennessee in the late '20s, becoming a regular performer on the city's famed Beale Street, where she was known as "the Mother of Beale Street." She recorded and performed under several different names, including Lillian Mae Glover, Mae Glover, and Big Memphis Ma Rainey, the name under which she tracked a few sides for Sun Records in 1953. She died in 1985 at Tishomingo County Hospital in Iuka, Mississippi at the age of 77.
Lillie Mae Glover (en realidad Lillie Mary Hardison , nacida el 9 de septiembre de 1906 en Columbia, Condado de Maury , † 27 de marzo de 1985 en Iuka (Mississippi)
Mae Glover, cuya vida es poco conocida , cantó en la década de 1920 en los clubes nocturnos de Beale Street en Memphis y grabó varias canciones de blues como "Joe Boy Blues" y "Nobody Can Take" en Memphis en abril de 1927. His Place ”, que se publicó bajo el seudónimo de May Armstrong . La acompañaba un pianista, que podría ser Lonnie Johnson . Otros cuatro títulos surgieron en agosto de 1927 bajo el seudónimo de Side Whel Sally Duffie (con Will Ezell ). En sus grabaciones para Gennett Records en julio de 1929, Glover fue acompañada por un guitarrista de Mississippi llamado John Byrd que toca la guitarra de 12 cuerdas. En "Pig Meat Papa" se apoyó en la canción yodel del cantante de blues blanco Jimmie Rodgers ; Otro título de esta sesión con Byrd es "Gas Man Blues". Su última sesión, en la que se grabaron ocho Sogs, tuvo lugar en febrero de 1931 en Richmond para los sellos Supertone y Champion ; Glover está acompañado por el pianista Charle O'Neil y el trompetista James Parker; El "Cuarenta y cuatro azules" que surgió en la sesión apareció bajo el seudónimo de Mae Muff como "Big Gun Blues" en Varsity Records.
En sus últimos años actuó en el Callejón Azul de Paul Savarin. Glover, quien murió de un ataque al corazón en 1985, está enterrado en el cementerio de Elmwwood en Memphis.
"I wanted to sing the blues, but my father was a pastor, and the blues were looked on in those days as dirty music. And for me to stay in Nashville would have been a disgrace for my family," she said in a 1982 interview.
Lillie Mae Glover, known to Beale Street patrons as Ma Rainey #2, is pictured here and is a resident of Elmwood Cemetery. Around age 13, she ran off with a carnival. Her manager told her she'd make more money if she told fortunes and trafficked in hoodoo, so she began to "cast spells" to bring back a strayed lover or cure an ill.
She had a big voice. She appeared as a comedian, and traveled with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, the Bronze Mannequins, the Vampin' Baby Show, the Georgia Minstrels, Harlem in Havana, and Nina Benson's Medicine Show. She made Memphis and Beale Street her home base in 1928, and married a cook named Willie Glover. She performed at the Midnight Rambles, the Peabody Hotel, the Coca Cola Club, the Citizens Club, the Manhattan Club, and Hotel Improvement, among others.
Even as hardworking as she was, there was never enough money to live on, and this gave rise to the famous epitaph now engraved on her pink granite obelisk at Elmwood: "I'm Ma Rainey #2, the Mother of Beale Street/I'm 78 years old/Ain't never had enough of nothing and it's too damn late now!"
Sign up for tonight's After Hours! Tour and you'll get the chance to visit Lillie Mae. Sign up at elmwoodcemetery.org/events.
Richmon, IN, July 29, 1929. Mae Glover (vo) with John Byrd (gtr, vo). From the CD "Little Rock Blues - The Essential recordings of Country Girls" (1927-1934), Indigo IGOCD 2124 (2000).
Àlbum
Mississippi Moaners (1927-1942)
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