DOUGLAS, MINNIE

DOUGLAS, MINNIE (MEMPHIS MINNIE). Blueswoman (3 June 1896 in Algiers, Louisiana; 7 August 1973 in Memphis, Tennessee). Her family moved to Walls, Mississippi (near Memphis, Tennessee), when she was a child. Her father bought her a banjo soon thereafter; by the time she was fifteen she had gained local recognition for her blues guitar as Kid Douglas. Beginning in 1916 she toured for several years with the Ringling Brothers Circus . She settled in Chicago during the late 1920s and established...