Elvis Presley's Hound Dog and Janis Joplin's Ball and Chain seem to come from different musical universes, but the blueprint for both was drawn by the same self-taught Black woman from rural Alabama: Willie Mae Big Mama Thornton. This episode examines how the daughter of a minister and a church singer, who dropped out of school after her mother died of tuberculosis and washed spittoons in a tavern, learned to sing, play harmonica, and play drums by absorbing the traveling musicians who came through town.

We follow her from a 1940 audition for Sammy Green's Hot Harlem Revue at age 14 through years on the Chitlin' Circuit, her signing with Don Robey's Peacock Records, and a December 1952 Apollo Theater debut so explosive that the stage manager dropped the curtain. The episode breaks down the 1952 Hound Dog session, where she overruled songwri ...