MEMPHIS – Jessie Mae Hemphill, whose award-winning blues career lasted decades and was heavily influenced by her upbringing in rural Mississippi, died on Saturday a week ago.
She was 71. The cause was complications of an infection that may have resulted from an ulcer, according to Olga Wilhelmine Mathus, the founder and president of the Jessie Mae Hemphill Foundation.Hemphill began playing guitar at the age of 7 or 8, and later moved on to other instruments.She lived in Memphis for 20 years and played the clubs on the city’s famous Beale Street before finding an international audience.Hemphill won the WC Handy Award for best traditional female blues artist in both 1987 and 1988.In 1991 she won the Handy Award for best acoustic album.In 1993, Hemphill had a stroke that paralysed her left side, leaving her unable to play guitar.She retired from touring and returned to Senatobia, Mississippi, where she lived with her dog, Sweet Pea.She recorded one final album a decade later, titled ‘Dare You to Do It Again’.- Nampa-AP —-The cause was complications of an infection that may have resulted from an ulcer, according to Olga Wilhelmine Mathus, the founder and president of the Jessie Mae Hemphill Foundation.Hemphill began playing guitar at the age of 7 or 8, and later moved on to other instruments.She lived in Memphis for 20 years and played the clubs on the city’s famous Beale Street before finding an international audience.Hemphill won the WC Handy Award for best traditional female blues artist in both 1987 and 1988.In 1991 she won the Handy Award for best acoustic album.In 1993, Hemphill had a stroke that paralysed her left side, leaving her unable to play guitar.She retired from touring and returned to Senatobia, Mississippi, where she lived with her dog, Sweet Pea.She recorded one final album a decade later, titled ‘Dare You to Do It Again’.- Nampa-AP —-
