Heritage Of The Blues: Shake It Baby

Performer: Jessie Mae Hemphill
Distributor: WEA (Distributor)

Notes: Personnel includes: Jessie Mae Hemphill (vocals, guitar, diddley bow, snare drum, tambourine, foot tambourine, bells); David Evans (guitar); Compton Jones (diddley bow, tambourine); Lois Brown (bass); Calvin Jackson, R.L. Boyce, Joe Hicks (drums); Bettye Mitchell (tambourine). Compilation producers: Dr. David Evans, Bruce Bromberg. This is part of Highnote's Heritage Of The Blues series. The 12-song Heritage of the Blues: Shake It Baby collection of Mississippi singer/guitarist Jessie Mae Hemphill is certainly needed. She didn't have the opportunity to record very often. As a matter of fact, her greatest exposure came through an appearance in Robert Palmer's 1993 film Deep Blues, which featured footage of Hemphill playing bass drum as part of Jessie Mae's Fife and Drum Band and then playing solo guitar. The tracks on Heritage of the Blues were recorded between 1979 and 1988 and feature Hemphill on guitar, diddley bow, drums, foot tambourine, and bells. It also includes three previously unreleased versions of "All Night Boogie (Jessie's Boogie)," "Shake It, Baby," and "Baby, Please Don't Go." This is timeless electric Delta blues recommended to both novices and historians. ~ Al Campbell

Boasting a musical family which included grandfather Sid Hemphill and aunt Rosa Lee Hill, the traditionalist Mississippi blueswoman Jesse Mae Hemphill specialized in a folk-derived, non-commercial blues indigenous to her region, including that of the fife-and-drum bands which actually predate the blues early in the 20th century. Hemphill's own music is characterized by the use of droning chords and self-accompanied rhythm provided by beating her foot on a tambourine. Her first solo album, 1981's SHE-WOLF, was actually first released in France but she eventually garnered several W.C. Handy awards for Best Traditional Artist all through the '80s. In 1993, a stroke necessitated her laying down her guitar but she continued to sing and beat on the tambourine till her death in 2006.

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