Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton outperformed the men of her day on stage, her larger-than-life personality and stature (she stood nearly 6-feet tall), commanding, or perhaps demanding, the ...

He introduced us to Big Mama Thornton, who wasn't necessarily particularly excited about meeting us. I mean, two white teenagers. She was very tough looking, scars on her face. Then we heard her ...

These are questions and themes tackled in Preston Lauterbach’s new book, “Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who ...

“I just like to sing my soul,” Willie Mae Thornton, better known as Big Mama Thornton, is heard to say in a new documentary being presented by Alabama Public Television. “I can’t sing nobo ...

Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" was a hit when released in 1956. But the original was recorded several years earlier by Big Mama ...

Newspapers with a black readership, like the St. Paul Recorder, noted that the veteran R&B singer Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton had first recorded the song a few years before. In Thornton’s ...