Talk:Memphis Minnie

Untitled
This seems to assume Jimmie Rodgers, of Blue Yodel fame, is the same as Jimmie Rodgers that did "Honeycomb." The latter was assuredly named after the former. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.219.154.102 (talk) 04:52, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Revision August 2013
The article contained a lot of repetition. It was also rather confused, with information about her musical career showing up in the "biography" and "personal life" sections, and information about her marriages in the "career" section. I've reorganised these parts of the article into "Early life", "Career", "Later life and death", and "personal life". I've taken comments about her character out of the section about her musical career and elsewhere and put them in the "personal life" section. I've incorporated the information from the "Miscellaneous information" section into the rest of the article.

I have improved the referencing, although there is still (to say the least) quite a bit of scope for further improvement there. Many of the references that are there still need to be properly formatted, some are just bare urls.

Some bits of information were unsupported by the sources used, or otherwise poorly (or un-) sourced and implausible. For example, I have removed the reference to Minnie attending elementary school with her younger sister Daisy - it doesn't appear at the reference given, and seems unlikely as Daisy was (According to Garon) born in 1915 by which time Minnie was 18 and had left home for 5 years. I've also removed some repetition and unsupported editorial comment, for example she was claimed to have become "very well known" while playing with McCoy and then to have become "very well known in the blues industry" after marrying Lawler.

I haven't done much to the "Legacy" section yet, but it needs quite a bit of work done on it. I have moved it to above the songs and discography sections. Brunton (talk) 21:09, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Birth name
I'm confused. This article gives her birth name as Lizzie Douglas, without any discussion of it. However, there are many other sites that give her birth name as Merline Baker - including the African-American Registry, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the African American National Biography, etc. In many cases, they give the name Merline Baker in references to her niece, LaVern Baker. But, LaVern Baker (her birth name was Delores LaVern Baker - the name Williams sometimes given to her was the result of an early marriage) was also, it is said, the niece of blues singer Merline Johnson. So, is the name Merline Baker simply a mistake, through some confusion with Merline Johnson? I suspect that the answer may be in the Garon and Garon book that is the main source for this article, but I don't have it. Does anyone know the answer? Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:23, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The African-American Registry gives Lizzie Douglas as her birth name in the entry for Memphis Minnie. Garon & Garon: Woman with Guitar, Harris: Bues Who's Who, Blues and Gospel Records 1890-1943, Blues Records 1943-1970, Russell: The Blues from Robert Johnson to Robert Cray,  Ted Gioia: Delta Blues, Lawrence Cohn: Nothing But the Blues (cited as a source by the African-American Registry "Memphis Minnie" page), and Guido van Rijn: Roosevelt's Blues all give her name as Lizzie Douglas.  The death certificate reproduced in Garon & Garon doesn't have a birth name (she's named as "Minnie Lawlers") but gives her father's name as Abe Douglas.  Some sources give her name as McCoy or Lawlars (her married names) but none of the books I've consulted give "Merline Baker", or even "Baker" as her birth name.  I haven't seen any mention of LaVern Baker in any of these (at least not in connection with Minnie), and the Garon biography doesn't mention bringing up a niece as far as I can see, so possibly there some confusion with Merline Johnson has arisen somewhere along the line.  All the sources I've found that link Minnie with the name "Merline Baker" are primarily about LaVern Baker rather than about Minnie.  Brunton (talk) 11:22, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks (don't worry, I haven't been sat here for weeks waiting for someone to turn up - it's just coincidence I'm here now!) It seems that it is LaVern Baker's biographers that have picked up the story that her aunt was Merline Baker, "also known as Memphis Minnie".  I'll raise the question on her article talk page, and see if anyone there can come up with anything.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:32, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061031060327/http://www.cr.nps.gov/delta/blues/people/memphis_minnie.htm to http://www.cr.nps.gov/delta/blues/people/memphis_minnie.htm
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Memphis Minnie discography.
You have omitted that in 1971. Minnie played rhythm guitar on her own composition; “When the levee breaks”, on Led Zeppelin’s Fourth album. 2A02:C7C:2CDD:7400:F03E:A2AD:1497:4BE5 (talk) 23:39, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Probably because that is utter bollocks. - Derek R Bullamore (talk) 13:16, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

her house
Actually according to Google maps and the photo associated w/ it the house does not exist anymore.

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.1104264,-90.0612909,3a,75y,270h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1spcc13aF_6xWlssgitoDAag!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu 47.138.91.65 (talk) 06:29, 14 April 2024 (UTC)