Jessie Mae Hemphill

Born in Mississippi, Jessie Mae Hemphill is a singer and guitarist whose approach fuses enduring Delta traditions with a markedly personal approach. Strong musical roots ran in her family, since her grandfather was captured performing in the fields by Alan Lomax during the 1940s. She acquired her guitar skills in childhood simply by studying her relatives as they played. Across the 1960s and 1970s she contributed vocals to assorted bar bands throughout Mississippi. Early in the 1980s she chose to strike out alone.

Solo engagements followed, with only an acoustic guitar and percussion as accompaniment. Her first album, She-Wolf, appeared in 1981 on the European label Vogue. The initial American release, Feelin' Good, arrived in 1987. That same year and again in 1988 she earned the W.C. Handy Award for best traditional female blues artist. After the late 1980s she stepped away from recording, yet she kept performing through the 1990s.