WORDS BY DAVID BURKE
Willie Mae Thornton – better-known as Big Mama Thornton – knew how it worked. Like her black R&B contemporaries, male and female (but especially female), she would never get the recognition for, or reap the financial rewards of her artistry.
A true rock’n’roll pioneer at a time when America was divided by race, her version of Leiber and Stoller’s Hound Dog topped the Billboard R&B chart for seven weeks in 1953, yet Thornton earned a paltry $500. Fast forward three years, and Elvis Presley’s version went multi-platinum, peaking at No.1 on the US Hot, Country and R&B listings simultaneously, and securing his kingly reputation and wealth.