Biography of Big Maybelle

Maybelle Smith was one of the great blues women -- "as regal as Bessie Smith, as fierce as Big Mama Thornton, as rocking as Etta James, as tart and tender at times as Billy Holliday or Dinah Washington," in the words of author Peter Guralnick. Big Maybelle's recordings of the '50s and '60s were a varied lot, ranging from hardhitting blues to sweetly sung ballads to odd adaptations of contemporary rock & roll hits. Only a tragic addiction to heroin kept her life and her professional career in turmoil. As DJ George Woods wrote on the liner notes to an early album by "The Mother of Soul," "Big Maybelle is a troubled soul who has known the depths of depression and human agony as few of us have ever known. She carries with her a burden so heavy that we who know her and love her must inwardly cry to see her carry on with the show so magnificently. ~ Jim O'Neal