Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton, like too many 20th-century jazz divas, from Bessie Smith to Billie Holiday, led a hard-luck life.

Howlin’ Blues & Dirty Dogs Deborah Klugman August 7, 2008 The spirit of the blues pulsates resoundingly throughout this stirring musical based on the life of Big Mama Thornton.

Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton grew up a preacher's daughter in Alabama, where she was born in 1926 and learned to sing in her church choir. But she sure didn't stay on the holy side of things ...

There’s cool and then there was Big Mama Thornton. Even when she couldn’t mask her poor health and she no longer looked like the robust Big Mama people knew, Thornton sat in a chair on a stage ...

Baz Luhrmann‘s box-office-topping new movie Elvis does manage to show the powerhouse singer Big Mama Thornton (played by Shonka Dukureh) performing “Hound Dog,” a song she recorded in 1952 ...

One of the greatest blues singers of all time, Alabama-born Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton was inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame in October 2024. She joined a traveling variety ...

On Sunday night, almost two decades after the label's first release, Big Boy alumni reunited at the Howlin' Wolf for the Boot Camp Clicc reunion, with Mystikal headlining.

Every Sunday for the next month, the Long Beach Playhouse Mainstage will host “Howlin’ Blues and Dirty Dogs,” a musical rendition of the life of blues singer Big Mama Thornton. Pr… ...

Since the city eased restrictions and provided guidelines for venues to host music indoors, Tipitina’s and the Howlin’ Wolf are bringing acts back to the stage in limited capacity.

Blues and jazz vocalist Barbara Morrison returns to the stage in the play Howlin Blues and Dirty Dogs, about the life and times of legendary blues singer Big Mama Thornton. Enjoying a sold-out five ...

The spirit of the blues pulsates resoundingly throughout this stirring musical based on the life of Big Mama Thornton. Class-act vocalist Barbara Morrison, who sports her own international ...

But what a lot of people don’t know is that Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton, not Elvis, was the first to sing about the famous dog.