大象传媒

Big Mama Thornton was a gender-fluid, masculine-presenting blues woman who first recorded Hound Dog (later recorded by Elvis Presley) and wrote the hit song Ball and Chain (popularised by Janis Joplin). But who was she? This essay examines and unpacks her identity, via a particular studio performance of Ball and Chain by Big Mama Thornton and the Buddy Guy Blues Band in 1970.

This essay series, Full Moon on Progress Street, takes a close look at a key moment and song to reveal the hidden lives and interests of some of the most important Black female artists of the 20th century 鈥� Ella Fitzgerald, Big Mama Thornton, Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. Dr Rommi Smith, life-long jazz and blues listener, considers a key moment in the creative life of each artist, reappraising what we think we know about them from popular culture. Each essay 鈥渇lips the script鈥�, to show a different hidden story. All these iconic women are broadly misrepresented - history and discrimination airbrushing their interests, politics, sexualities, creative legacy and passions.

Dr Rommi Smith is a writer, performer and academic, whose research centres the performances of historical Black jazz and blues women within the context of civil rights. Rommi鈥檚 academic work is published by, amongst others, New York University Press and Routledge. Contributors to her research include: five-time Grammy-winning NEA jazz master, Dianne Reeves and five-time Grammy-winning musician, Dr Esperanza Spalding.
A three-time 大象传媒 Writer-in-Residence, Rommi is a guest curator of the 大象传媒 Radio 4 programme Poetry Please and a contributor to programmes ranging from Front Row to The Verb, The Essay to Woman鈥檚 Hour.

The inaugural British Parliamentary Writer-in-Residence and Poet-in-Residence for Keats House, Hampstead, Rommi was also the Poet-in-Residence for the Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere. Rommi鈥檚 fifth collaboration as librettist with the baritone and composer Roderick Williams responds to the oratory of Dr Martin Luther King. It will be performed by the choir of St Paul鈥檚 Cathedral in December 2024.

www.rommi-smith.co.uk
@rommismith

Writer and Presenter, Dr Rommi Smith
Producer, Polly Thomas
Exec producer, Eloise Whitmore
A Naked Production for 大象传媒 Radio 3