Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton was a major figure in American popular music for forty years. From a rural Alabama background, she defied gender norms, wore jeans, a cowboy hat and boots, stood over six feet tall and weighed as much as 300 pounds. Mike Stoller tells us it was her demeanor – and the two scars on her forehead — that inspired him and Jerry Lieber to write “Hound Dog” expressly for her.
Foufounes Electriques