Happy birthday to Big Maybelle, America's 'Queen Mother of Soul'
This post was originally published on this site
What better way to kick off the month of May than with a birthday tribute to Mabel Louise Smith, better known to R&B, blues, gospel, jazz and rock fans as Big Maybelle? Born on May 1, 1924 in Tennessee, Big Maybelle’s musical output was prolific during a career that ended with her death at the age of 47. It’s difficult to place her discography in one single category. And sadly, like far too many Black female artists who were musical groundbreakers, her legacy and impact on multiple genres has been obscured, and virtually forgotten.
It’s hard to believe, given Maybelle’s drawing power among the Black community during the height of her career, that not one biography has been written about her, and certainly no biopic starring famous musicians of today. But at least we’ve got her extensive catalog of music to listen to.
So for this #BlackMusicSunday, let’s do just that, as we celebrate Ms. Maybelle, the American Queen Mother of Soul.
I was pleased to find this tribute to Big Maybelle from YouTube’s Soul Facts. The web series is a creation of Mike Boone, who bills himself as the “Chancellor of Soul,” and describes himself as “a music historian and storyteller from Harlem.” His work focuses deeply on the work of “unsung or unnoticed” musicians.
As Boone explains, while singing in churches and carnivals as a child, Maybelle was “discovered” by bandleader Dave Clark in the early 1930s.
Boone’s video launched me onto a small detour into the story of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm; historians, including Boone, note Maybelle toured with the group early in her career. Daily Kos Community Contributor Charles Jay showcased the Sweethearts in 2021, and this 30-minute documentary about the Sweethearts from 1986 was produced by Greta Schiller and Andrea Weiss.
Oddly, Big Maybelle is not mentioned.
Finding mentions of Big Maybelle longer than a paragraph or two is difficult. Harlem World Magazine offers an exception, picking up her career as she reached adulthood.
In the early forties Mabel was part of pianist Christine Chatman’s orchestra (a decade later Chatman was a session pianist on some of Hank Ballard & The Midnighters sides for King) and made her first recording with that group in 1944 for Decca Records. Soon she toured with the Tiny Bradshaw band, and her work with him and Oran “Hot Lips” Page led to a couple of appearances on record for King in the late nineteen forties. By the start of the new decade she was now working as a single, but bookings were sporadic and recording sessions were non-existent. At an appearance with Jimmy Witherspoon at Detroit’s Flame Show Bar in 1952, the struggling performer gained notice, and soon it paid off.
Here’s that first record from 1944—when, just 20 years old, she was still billed as Mabel Smith.
Back to the Harlem World story:
Okeh Records, the newly revived R & B offshoot of Columbia records was developing a roster of recording talent when word was passed about the blues belter based in Cincinnati, Mabel Smith. The people at Okeh liked what they saw and heard, and so the newly renamed Big Maybelle was signed to the label in September of 1952. Her first session for the label produced the song “Rain Down Rain” written by promising composer Lincoln Chase on #6931. The flip side was “The Gabbin’ Blues”. This very first session produced the first success of Maybelle’s career. “Gabbin Blues” along with Chuck Willis “My Story” resulted in the biggest month for the label ever and the first time Okeh had two top ten sellers on the list at the same time. Maybelle was an in person smash in Philadelphia, first for a week at the Earle Theater along with Willie Mabon, and then at a number of nightclubs in that city including Pep’s and Emerson’s cafe.
Gabbin‘ Blues, her 1952 Okeh debut, is a very Black shade-slinging session between Maybelle and Rose Marie McCoy, the tune’s cowriter.
It opens with McCoy saying, “Here come ol’ evil chick, always telling everybody she come from Chicago. Got Mississippi written all over her,” before Maybelle’s powerful vocal comes in. McCoy keeps up a steady stream of trash-talking and cackling in response to each sung stanza.
Dave Penny offers an anecdote about Maybelle’s risque humor, displayed one night at The Apollo.
“She became a super favourite at The Apollo; they loved her not only for her singing – she’d tear the place apart – but also for her comedic work. One joke she used to tell all the time : at that time there was a product on the radio, a detergent called Duz whose slogan was “Duz Does It!”. Maybelle said, ‘I’m gonna go to work and make commercials for a new cleaning detergent. It’s called Fug, and if Duz don’t do it, then Fug it!’” Fred Mendelsohn (producer and friend) DVD of the Newport Jazz Festival 1958
In 1956, Okeh Records dropped Maybelle due to lagging record sales, but she got picked up immediately by Savoy. There she would record the hit Candy, which would become her signature tune. Maybelle posthumously received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award for the song in 1999.
Most fans of early rock and roll are very familiar with Jerry Lee Lewis’ 1957 hit, Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On, which is lauded as one of the founding classics of the genre. I actually saw him perform the song live as a teenager, at Atlantic City’s Steel Pier. He was a curiosity for me; it was odd to see a white guy playing Black music with a country twist. But few know that the song originated with Big Maybelle.
Here’s Big Maybelle’s rendition, which was recorded two years before Lewis’, in March 1955. The song was produced by a young Quincy Jones.
Thanks to the 1959 documentary Jazz On A Summer’s Day—filmed at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival—we get to see Big Maybelle at her best, and in color!
Here’s the audio of the entire session:
As for Maybelle’s personal life and struggles, they were many. The most dangerous was her ongoing battle with heroin addiction, as well as with her weight—which she was taunted for most of her life—and diabetes. Even as her health declined, Maybelle had one last unlikely hit with a cover of 96 Tears in 1967, made famous by the Mexican American garage rock band, ? and the Mysterians.
In 1968, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Big Maybelle shouted out the pain that people around the globe were feeling. Paul Devlin wrote about her for The Root in 2011, dubbing her tribute “The Best Martin Luther King Jr. Anthem Ever.”
A better candidate for the best-ever MLK tribute title: Big Maybelle’s visceral, angst-ridden dirge, “Heaven Will Welcome You, Dr. King,” a searing shriek from the depths of the soul. Unlike “Abraham, Martin and John,” “Heaven Will Welcome You, Dr. King” was not designed for AM radio. The lyrics (by Jack Taylor) are very simple. They don’t rely on poetic devices. They appear to have been straightforwardly written and recorded while the pain of the moment was still overwhelming.
The song seems to have lain dormant for years. It was released on iTunes and Amazon.com in 2009 on a two-song “album,” along with her cover of “Eleanor Rigby” (which certainly deserves to be known by Beatles fans far and wide). “Heaven Will Welcome You, Dr. King” doesn’t even sound as if it was fully produced, and that feels appropriate; the rawness of the sound mirrors the rawness of the emotion. It is less pristine, clear-sounding, marketable, music-business commodity than intensely and authentically felt horror and anguish. The anger and sadness in her voice is matched by the playing of the musicians. It adds up to a mighty lament, an expression of darkest funerary gloom, unimpeded by any sweetness or light, evoking the emotions of what that April 1968 morning must have been like.
Have a listen for yourself.
Big Maybelle would be welcomed into the heavenly band of angels in January 1972, her life ending in a diabetic coma. She is buried in Evergreen Memorial Park Cemetery, in the Cleveland, Ohio, suburb of Bedford Heights.
In 2019, Maybelle was honored in her Tennessee hometown with a historical marker.
Please join me in the comments for lots more music from Big Maybelle, and to celebrate this first day of May. Be sure to post your favorites!