Release date Oct 15, 1930After she moved to Chicago, Minnie became a major star in the stable of Lester Melrose, who produced most of the blues recordings made in the United States between 1934 and 1951, usually with the same core group of musici…
Record company publicity photograph, 1930s.Playing the blues in barrel houses and juke joints was dangerous. Memphis Minnie’s solution was twofold. She always traveled and performed with a male partner, a husband for most of her career, but she a…
From R. Crumb’s “Heroes of the Blues”Why did so few women follow the life Memphis Minnie chose? The answer lies in the sexual mores of the time. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, show business was not considered a respectable occup…
Lizzie ‘Memphis Minnie’ Douglas (1897-1973)The blues tradition that most influenced modern popular music is that of the self-accompanied singer/songwriter. This tradition of the traveling musician who sings and plays guitar, and whose original so…
Photo by Fred MinnickThe “Scotch Guys Think Bourbon Guys Are Screwing with ‘Their’ Barrels” post got a lot of attention and sparked a memory.When Beam introduced Devil’s Cut in 2011, I asked Fred Noe how this new way of processing used barrels wo…
Dumping a bourbon barrel. But is it really empty?The headline seems innocuous enough: “Why more bourbon distillers are rinsing their used barrels.” In her article in Whisky Magazine, Susannah Skiver Barton explains how, since bourbon must be…
Image courtesy National Alcohol Beverage Control Association (NABCA)As American laws go, the 21st Amendment to the Constitution is stunningly brief, not even 100 words, most of them boilerplate. The first section repeals the 18th Amendment (…
A mini-bottle of Fireball Cinnamon Whisky (L) and a mini-bottle of Fireball Cinnamon Flavored Malt Beverage (R)”There’s no whiskey in mini bottles of Fireball, so customers are suing for fraud,” reads the headline on the website for National Publ…
One of government’s most basic jobs is ensuring that things we buy and use are what they claim to be. Rules enforced by various agencies regulate what can be said about food, medicine, stocks, bonds, insurance, the hidden contents of mattresses, …
Chicago’s Chapin & Gore in its heyday.When beverage alcohol was outlawed in 1920, people lost jobs and businesses closed. Economic disruption was widespread, affecting not just distillers, brewers, and vintners, and their associated distributors an…
