Memphis Minnie. Associating with circus and vaudeville performers must have been a step up for a street musician, and probably helped Minnie make her music more of an act. Memphis Minnie, Black Bob, Bill Settles / Memphis Minnie: Memphis Minnie, Black Bob, Bill Settles / Memphis Minnie - Joe Louis Strut / He's In The Ring (Doing That Same Old Thing) ‎ (Shellac, 10") Vocalion (2) 03046: US: 1935: Sell This Version To buy Minnie’s original recordings check Arhoolie, and Document . It remains vital and influential today because of her inventive, rhythmic guitar playing and her songs, which capture people … African, European and Indigenous traditions had begun to coalesce into the blues in the South much earlier than the ’20s, but our perception of history is usually based on recorded history: what gets recorded, written about and incorporated into our accepted common memory. One of Memphis Minnie’s first musical partnerships was with Willie Brown, who is is better known for his association with Charlie Patton. Queen of the Blues 1997 Blues Legends: Memphis Minnie, Vol. Have fun! It’s hard to imagine how prevalent live music was before the advent of consumer electronics. The silly yet haunting “Bumble Bee Blues” became the popular song from that session– so popular that Minnie recorded several different versions of it for different labels. Memphis Minnie Songs Download- Listen to Memphis Minnie songs MP3 free online. If you are interested in Minnie’s guitar style, I’ve made a Homespun video on how to figure her guitar parts in the various keys she plays in. Minnie settled Memphis in the early ’20s. CD : $23 ... MEMPHIS MINNIE › See all 36 albums by Memphis Minnie. Minnie’s fantastically vituperative vocal delivery on some songs may be due in part to having a cheek full of Copenhagen. The back-up parts are as interesting as the melody parts, especially on tunes like “When the Levee Breaks”, recorded in 1929, in Spanish tuning capoed to Bb (the third fret) or “Crazy Crying Blues” from 1931, also in Spanish, capoed to C# (the sixth fret). Her recordings with Son Joe are in duet style, with piano, bass or drums added on some sessions. Their guitar duets span the spectrum of African-American folk and popular music, including spirituals, comic dialogs, and old-time dance pieces, but Memphis Minnie's best work consisted of deep blues like "Moaning the Blues." Minnie worked the streets and parks with Jed Davenport’s Beale Street Jug Band, and her guitar playing was influenced by the popular jug band musician Frank Stokes, who’s guitar duets with Dan Sane are very similar to Minnie’s early style. They mixed blues with pop tunes, her favorite cover being “What Makes You Do Me Like You Do Do Do”. MEMPHIS MINNIE & KANSAS JOE. Kansas Joe,and Minnie were guitarists of equal ability, and the interplay of their instruments is like a great conversation: with both of them switching between treble and bass. Apparently people in Chicago, who had never actually seen her play, were skeptical–so far no women instrumentalists had become prominent on the tough country blues circuit, although some (like guitarist Mattie Delaney), made a brief, tantalizing appearance, then disappeared. Lizzie Douglas (June 3, 1897 – August 6, 1973), known as Memphis Minnie, was a blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter whose recording career lasted from the 1920s to the 1950s.   Musically there were three basic phases to her style: the duet years with Kansas Joe, the “Melrose” band sound of the late thirties and early forties, and her later electric playing. Memphis Minnie’s music remained popular over two decades because it was lyrically and instrumentally in tune with the lives of Black Americans. Suzy Thompson, who plays blues fiddle and guitar is another current interpreter of Minnie’s songs. Memphis Minnie, Unknown, Probably Blind John Davis & Arnette Nelson 2:54: 20 I'm Going Don't You Know Memphis Minnie & Arnette Nelson 2:58: 20 Songs, 58 Minutes Released: Apr 15, 1991 ℗ 1991 Sony Music Entertainment Inc. Also Available in iTunes More By Memphis Minnie See All. Photo courtesy the Frank Driggs collection. She recorded around 200 songs, some of the best known being "Bumble Bee", "Nothing in Rambling", and "Me and My Chauffeur Blues". She can walk”. 5 collection on Apple Music and Spotify to hear her complete works from 1940-1941. The original dates back to 1929, and Minnie’s first-ever recording session. Minnie and Brown would get aboard and entertain the primarily white pleasure seekers, once debarking at Biggs Arkansas with $119 in tips. Starting in 1929, her records lead us through twenty years of recorded blues and illustrate her life, as she moved from the rural South to urban Chicago. by Del Rey copyright 1997 Hobemian Records, (a version of this article was originally published in Acoustic Guitar Magazine 1997). In any case, in 1929 Elizabeth Douglas, professionally known as Memphis Minnie, made her debut on record. Her work (over 200 recordings) leads the way through the development of blues guitar playing, starting with her first recordings in 1929. After Son Joe’s death in 1962 Minnie lived in a nursing home until she died on August 6,1973, at the age of 76. Their sessions in May and December of 1941 fused her more urban sound, (for example her vocal delivery on “Nothin’ In Ramblin”), with Son Joe’s back-up style, which combined big chords with an insistent beat to create a chunky swing feel.   The wretchedness of hitting the fields at dawn led some to try life with “the starvation box”, as Roosevelt Sykes called the guitar. In 1957 Minnie had an incapacitating heart attack, and Son Joe became too ill to perform. She lived a long life, was at her best in middle age, and would spit tobacco wearing a chiffon ball gown. In the studio Minnie worked with pianist Black Bob, drummer Fred Williams and other instrumentalists, from the occasional trumpeter to lap-steel and mandolin. Lizzie Douglas (June 3, 1897 – August 6, 1973), known as Memphis Minnie, was a blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter whose recording career lasted for over three decades. Sometimes a blues musician got paid with an apple or a can of sardines, sometimes she made as much as a hundred dollars. He described the sound of her electric guitar as ” a musical version of electric welders plus a rolling mill”. Guitar Queen. ... (101 songs) Salt & Pepper 19-03-2015 Prison Bound Blues (Blues People - 1923 - 1930) 01. Copyright © 2020 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. 03. Some of her mid-thirties recordings incorporate piano, drums and a few horn players and after 1935, she joined the group of musicians who worked regularly for Lester Melrose, a producer and talent scout who supplied blues artists for a number of labels. 03:07 Composers: M. McCoy. This is the complete list of songs recorded by Memphis Minnie, in alphabetical order. Minnie, presided over Blue Monday parties at Ruby Lee Gatewood’s Tavern playing an electrified National arch top in front of a band that included bass and drums. Although Memphis Minnie is gone, her music is still full of life, and her influence can be heard in the music of the many Chicago blues players who came up during her reign in the thirties and forties. Her guitar playing embodies the best of blues: it takes a simple form and makes each iteration fresh and inventive. A full-length biography, “Woman With Guitar: Memphis Minnie’s Blues” by Paul and Beth Garon was published by DaCapo press in 1998 with a 2nd edition in 2014. Yet she remains comparatively unknown and under-studied in relation to her influence and importance to the development of blues music and guitar playing. They were playing together in a Beale street barbershop when a scout from Columbia offered to record them in New York. I’ve noted where I think she’s playing-what position and what key. Songs Sort by: Bestselling. Joe and Minnie based themselves in Chicago throughout the early ’30s, playing clubs like the DeLisa and the Music Box, recording both together and separately. Minnie used the name both publicly and privately, although her family still called her Kid. CD: $32.41 MP3: $9.49. Minnie toured a great deal in the ’30s, mostly in the south. She also proved to have as good taste in musical husbands as music and sustained working marriages with guitarists Casey Bill Weldon, Joe McCoy, and Ernest Lawlars. Memphis Minnie (known to her family as “Kid”) was born June 3, 1897, in Algiers Louisiana, the oldest of 13 brothers and sisters. Visit Del Rey and Suzy Thompson for modern interpretations. It’s rural party music, with doubling of parts helping punch the sound through in a loud environment in the pre-electric age. She grew up in Walls Mississippi, about 20 miles from Memphis on Route 61, in a time before rural electrification and national media created a mass culture. Memphis Minnie (Image credit: Getty). Complete Recorded 2 Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe. The forties treated Minnie and Son Joe well and they performed both together and separately depending on finances, (they could make more money playing separate gigs). Memphis Minnie song lyrics collection. Lizzie Douglas was born on June 3, 1897 in Algiers, Louisiana. Her recordings were reissued by Chris Strachwitz on Blues Classics in the late sixties, and had a profound influence on several young musicians, particularly the late guitarist JoAnn Kelly, and Maria Muldaur who still sings Minnie’s songs today. A musicians’ life was an escape from endless labor, looked on with both admiration and resentment by the field hands and workers in the audience. Lizzie Douglas was born on June 3, 1897 in Algiers, Louisiana. Perhaps the glamour of beaded and tiaraed blues royalty seemed wrong for a time of soup kitchens and extensive poverty, although blues listeners surely always lived in poverty. Paul and Beth Garon include a fascinating photo of Minnie’s set list in “Woman with Guitar”, that includes songs like “Marie”, “Woody Woodpecker”, Lady Be Good”, “I Love You For Sentimental Reasons” and “How High The Moon.”  Son Joe and Minnie played until their health broke down. To place an order or for customer service, call toll-free 1-800-336-4627 or outside the United States, call 1-610-649-7565 Courtesy Vintage Books USA. Broonzy and Minnie became good friends, and played together locally and on the road. There are also additional hints as to positions, and links to sound recordings on the Playing Memphis Minnie page. Memphis Minnie wrote Hoodoo Lady, When the Levee Breaks and Joliet Bound. He standardized the sound of his blues offerings, using musicians like Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy and Thomas Dorsey to back up different artists. The most popular and prolific blueswoman outside the vaudeville tradition, she earned the respect of critics, the support of record-buying fans, and the unqualified praise of the blues artists she worked with throughout her long career. Download our mobile app now. She was always a finger picker, and played in Spanish (DGDGBD) and standard tunings, often using a capo. She was known to spit mid-song without losing a beat. Big Bill Broonzy recalls her beating both him and Tampa Red in a guitar contest and claims she was the best woman guitarist he had ever heard. Styles were shifting toward jump blues bands and by the mid ’50s the record industry had changed irrevocably with the fabrication of rock and roll. Memphis Minnie's songs: Listen to songs by Memphis Minnie on Myspace, Stream Free Online Music by Memphis Minnie Terrell) were seldom recorded playing blues. Minnie was quick to embrace the latest technologies in order to be heard above the crowds She was one of the first blues players to use a National in 1929, and to play an electric wood body National and various electric guitars in the ’40s and ’50s. If You See My Rooster (Please Run Him Home), The First Lady of Blues (Digitally Remastered), Memphis Minnie, Vol. Minnie’s arrival in Chicago precipitated a showdown with the reigning King, Big Bill Broonzy.1. As a child, she was called Kid Douglas and she learned how to play the guitar and banjo. Memphis Minnie (June 3, 1897 – August 6, 1973) was an American blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwr The Songs. Memphis Minnie covered Bumble Bee and When the Sun Goes Down - Part 2. Sources not cited in the text are from record labels and personal conversations with musicians. Perhaps it was cheaper to record a country boy’s guitar than an established vaudeville professional. Memphis Minnie's last commercial release, and a good one. Complete song listing of Memphis Minnie on OLDIES.com. Tough enough to endure in a hard business, she earned the respect of her peers with her solid musicianship and recorded good blues over four decades for Columbia, Vocalion, Bluebird, OKeh, Regal, Checker, and JOB. Master finger-style guitar player. Some of Minnie’s best lyrics come from this period, like those in the autobiographical “In My Girlish Days”, (1941)which she played in G in standard tuning. We have 1 albums and 28 song lyrics in our database. Memphis Minnie. in the ’20s when record companies first perceived a market for the style. As a working musician, Minnie’s guitar style evolved partly in response to the kind of places she played and the people for whom she played. More than a good woman blues guitarist and singer, Memphis Minnie holds her own against the best blues artists of her time, and her work has special resonance for today's aspiring guitarists.   By 1929, Douglas had married another guitar-player, Joe McCoy, who was a good singer and guitarist, but reputedly a jealous fellow. The official job prospects for black women were limited to domestic service and farm work both of which demanded grueling labor and subservience for low pay. Memphis Minnie wrote Hoodoo Lady, When the Levee Breaks and Joliet Bound. Even though sales of their recordings slowed down by the end of the forties, their audience remained available to them in the clubs. Memphis Minnie discography and songs: Music profile for Memphis Minnie, born 3 June 1897. ~ Barry Lee Pearson. The major labels pulled out of the blues market, and Minnie’s last recordings were for Regal in 1949. One photo of the two has Minnie in an florid, drop-waisted day dress, with straightened flapper hair, looking distinctly unsteady on her feet as she grabs hold of a grim-faced Joe’s padded shoulder. As Broonzy tells the story, in his autobiography Big Bill Blues, (Cassell and Co.London 1956) a jury of fellow musicians awarded Minnie the prize of a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of gin for her performance of “Chauffeur Blues” and “Looking the World Over”. It is difficult to tell whether audiences demanded different music, or if they bought what was promoted and available. Record companies are remarkably mono-thematic about marketing, and Minnie, like many other blues musicians, played jazz and swing tunes as well, although there are only hints of this in her 200 recorded sides. Music (like most things) was still homemade: for entertainment, people threw parties–suppers where roast shoat, custard pies and candy sticks dipped in corn whiskey got worked off dancing the “shoofly”, the “scratch” and the “shimmy-she-wobble.” Minnie started playing banjo when she was seven years old, and was influenced by the string bands which played for dancers who partied all night and hit the fields at dawn. Her singing and songwriting, spirited demeanor, and superlative guitar playing propelled her to the upper echelons of a field then dominated by male guitarists and pianists.   In 1933, when Big Bill Broonzy was very popular in Chicago, a blues contest between him and Memphis Minnie took place in a night club. Memphis Minnie originally did Soo Cow Soo, Moonshine, Can't Afford to Lose My Man, Pig Meat on the Line and other songs. Langston Hughes quote courtesy Vintage Books USA. Brown provided the solid rhythm and bass lines she seemed to require from all her men. The traveling musician was often a lonely stranger, an outsider who might not know the local situation, and musicians often teamed up. Beale Street was at this time an important bit of pavement, a place where segregation forced dentists and church ladies to mix with gamblers and whores, creating quite a lively atmosphere. Join Napster and access full-length songs on your phone, computer or home audio device.   Columbia was responsible for bestowing their geographical monikers: Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe. Minnie’s voice is rarely heard, even today: it is the voice of an independent, childless woman, an artist who never puts up with abuse, and who managed to find pleasure while living through tough times. Although Son’s playing has an impelling pulse and solidness their instrumental interplay is less intricate than what Minnie and Kansas Joe recorded. Despite her Southern roots and popularity, she was as much a Chicago blues artist as anyone in her day. In 1939 she married Ernest “Little Son Joe” Lawlars, a Memphis based guitarist who was her partner for the next 23 years. Memphis Minnie was never interested in physical labor and she began to play on the streets of Memphis and the towns surrounding Walls soon after getting her first guitar. Perhaps it’s because Memphis Minnie doesn’t fit the myth of the young, tragic, haunted blues man and she is too complex of a character to be easily marketed. She was the only female blues artist considered a match to male contemporaries as both a singer and an instrumentalist. Composers: Kansas Joe McCoy - Memphis Minnie McCoy. In terms of her influence on the development of blues, she was an important player in the Chicago clubs during the ’40s when musicians like Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rodgers and Johnny Shines, were coming up. 04. are repertoire perennials. The poet Langston Hughes saw her perform New Year’s Eve 1942, at the 230 Club, and was thoroughly overwhelmed by her “scientific” (i.e. Their guitar duets span the spectrum of African-American folk and popular music, including spirituals, comic dialogs, and old-time dance pieces, but Memphis Minnie's best work consisted of deep blues like "Moaning the Blues." She got her first guitar at age ten or 11. For guitar players, the first part of her career is definitely the most inspiring, as her inventive variations make masterpieces of tunes like “When The Levee Breaks”(1930) or “Let’s Go To Town”(1931). These sides were never issued by Regal but can now be heard on the Biograph CD Memphis Minnie: Early Rhythm and Blues 1949. Queen Of The Blues. Why has this musician , with her enormous body of recordings, who was well-loved by the Black blues audiences of the ’30s and ’40s been comparatively ignored by later, whiter audiences? Primarily an urban, piano based music, it was perfect for the speciously prosperous “Jazz Age” atmosphere of the twenties, during which the music of Black Americans became increasingly influential to the mainstream. Her recorded output is not necessarily the same as her live set. Memphis Minnie was born on this date in 1897. It was during this period that Bob Wills and some of his Texas Playboys saw her playing in Texas; they would later make her “What’s The Matter With The Mill?” a part of their repetoire. In 1907 a blues musician played in all kinds of places: house parties, barrel houses, work camps, traveling shows. Lizzie Douglas (June 3, 1897 – August 6, 1973), known as Memphis Minnie, was a blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter whose recording career lasted for over three decades.She recorded around 200 songs, some of the best known being "Bumble Bee", "Nothing in Rambling", and … Hoodoo Lady.  There have been a number of re-releases of her work, and her songs, especially Chauffeur Blues, When The Levee Breaks, Black Rat Swing and What’s The Matter With The Mill? She shaped a life very different from the limited possibilities offered to the women of her time. Watch this for some tips: Find album reviews, stream songs, credits and award information for BD Blues: Memphis Minnie - Memphis Minnie on AllMusic 1 the Complete post-war Recordings in Chronological Order. Unlimited free Memphis Minnie music - Click to play My Gage Is Going Up, Can't Afford To Lose My Man and whatever else you want! In guitarist Willie Moore’s recollection, (reported in Stephen Calt and Gayle Dean Wardlow’s King of the Delta Blues; The Life and Music of Charlie Patton, 1988 Rock Chapel Press) Minnie was the better guitarist, —“She was a guitar king”—-he said—- although Brown was better known. Bill grabbed half the prize (the bottle of whiskey) and took it off to drink under a table. Tracking down the ultimate woman blues guitar hero is problematic because woman blues singers seldom recorded as guitar players and woman guitar players (such as Rosetta Tharpe and Sister O.M. Two of the judges, John Estes and Richard Jones hoisted the victorious Minnie on their shoulders while Kansas Joe remarked sourly “Put her down. The poet Langston Hughes was overwhelmed by Minnie’s “rolling mill” sounds. Genres: Country Blues, Acoustic Chicago Blues, Blues. She recorded her most popular song, “Bumble Bee Blues,” at her first session in 1929 and re-recorded the song repeatedly throughout her career, including a session with The Memphis Jug Band. Born in Algiers, LA, in 1897, Lizzie Douglas forged a reputation as Memphis Minnie during … As the realities of boom and bust economics became universal after the stock market crash of 1929, record companies began to seek out rural, guitar based music. Before she turned ten, she and her family had relocated to Wall, Mississippi, just south of Memphis. Listen to your favorite songs from Memphis Minnie. Memphis Minnie recorded over 100 songs, most of which she had written herself. Their first session was on June 18, 1929, two weeks after Minnie’s 32nd birthday. She recorded around 200 songs, some of the best known being "Bumble Bee", "Nothing in Rambling", and " Me and My Chauffeur Blues ". View Memphis Minnie song lyrics by popularity along with songs featured in, albums, videos and song meanings. She was born Lizzie Douglas in Algiers, LA. Stream ad-free with Amazon Music Unlimited on mobile, desktop, and tablet. Memphis Minnie (June 3, 1897 – August 6, 1973) was an American blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter. Here’s links to a few of my favorite MM tunes. Minnie and Joe began a steady series of recording dates in New York, and Memphis, first for Columbia, later for Vocalion, Decca, Okeh and Bluebird. Excluding contemporary artists, the most notable exception to this pattern was Memphis Minnie. Browse 50 lyrics and 412 Memphis Minnie albums. Many of her hits are still standards in more than one genre, like “What’s The Matter With The Mill?”, “Chauffeur Blues” or “When The Levee Breaks”. Albums include Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music: Volume Four, Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues: A Musical Journey, and When the Levee Breaks / That Will Be Alright. She and Brown began playing together around 1915 in the resort town of Bedford Mississippi, where tourists could take a ferryboat trip around nearby Lake Cormorant. loud) sound. Their marriage and musical partnership fell apart in the mid-thirties, around the same time Minnie became increasingly featured as a guitarist, vocalist and songwriter. She also played for dances and store promotions. Related Topics: Big Bill Bronzy Blues Jefferson Airplane Memphis Minnie On This Day Play Memphis Minnie hit new songs and download Memphis Minnie MP3 songs and music album online on … Clearly she had by that time embraced the next phase of the blues. A 1953 stomper about STD's. In our society, what is deemed important is often what has commercial value, and that is precisely what pushes blues off the front porch and onto 78s. Memphis Minnie (Lizzie Douglas, 1897-1973) was one of the premier blues artists of the 1930s and ‘40s. Memphis Minnie covered Bumble Bee and When the Sun Goes Down - Part 2. In the same session Son Joe sang “Black Rat Swing”, and sounded so much like Minnie he must have borrowed her chewing tobacco. Memphis Minnie’s music remained popular over two decades because it was lyrically and instrumentally in tune with the lives of Black Americans. Minnie’s fame began to spread northward by word of mouth and records. https://memphisminnie.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/3MemphisMinnie.mp3. The composer credits for When The Levee Breaks – the closing track on Led Zeppelin’s multi-platinum fourth album (the rune-y one with Stairway To Heaven on) – read, ‘Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, John Bonham & Memphis Minnie’. Minnie is rumored to have joined a Ringling Bros. circus in Clarksdale around 1917. The companies began to seek out and record other singers in the same vaudevillian genre. She was an African American blues musician and singer. He seems to play with a flatpick, mostly in standard tuning. Memphis Minnie (born Lizzie Douglas in Algiers, Louisiana, June 3, 1897 – August 6, 1973) was an American blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter from the late 1920s to the 1950s, one of the most influential country blues musicians to have ever recorded. Anywhere you hear canned music now would probably have had a live musician–well, maybe not elevators. Listen to albums and songs from Memphis Minnie. Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe McCoy:You Got To Move, Part 1 Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe McCoy:You Got To Move, Part 2 Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe:Hole In The Wall They returned to Memphis where Minnie’s sister Daisy took care of them. It remains vital and influential today because of her inventive, rhythmic guitar playing and her songs, which capture people and events and bring them to life across the years. Memphis Minnie (born Lizzie Douglas in Algiers, Louisiana, June 3, 1897 – August 6, 1973) was an American blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter from the late 1920s to the 1950s, one of the most influential country blues musicians to have ever recorded. He's In the Ring (Doin' the Same Old Thing) Memphis Minnie. There were traveling shows of all kinds, from lowdown to grand, but they all included comedy, dancers and musicians of every type from jug bands to elegant pianists. The best tune of that session, in which Minnie generally sounded tired and overwrought, is “Downhome Girl” which is sung with great feeling but too many notes on the wrong frets. That version, with its laid-back, behind-the-beat, jug-driven groove, points the way to the Memphis Beat later perfected at Stax Records. Memphis Minnie - Walls. Memphis Minnie originally did Soo Cow Soo, Moonshine, Can't Afford to Lose My Man, Pig Meat on the Line and other songs. Theatrical, glamorous blues queens dominated the first decade of recorded blues. In conjunction with the tunes I show on my homespun DVD The Blues Guitar Styles of Memphis Minnie, you should be able to figure these out with a little study.Never figured a tune out? Elizabeth “Kid” Douglas, known as Memphis Minnie was an intricate guitarist, an astute songwriter and a stylistic innovator. Joe Louis Strut . Songs of Minnie's such as 'When the Levee Breaks' and 'Can I Do It for You?' Memphis Minnie is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest artists in the Blues world and this collection highlights why. Listen to the Memphis Minnie Vol.   The commercial success of Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues” in 1920, alerted record companies to the existence of black record buyers. Blues musician played in all kinds of places: house parties, barrel houses, work,. Hobemian Records, ( a version of electric welders plus a rolling mill.. 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Music and Spotify to hear her complete works from 1940-1941 Minnie is rumored have... A singer and an instrumentalist just south of Memphis was at her best in age. Tobacco wearing a chiffon ball gown s last recordings were for Regal in 1949 andÂ...