Big Mama Thornton

How strange. I forgot all about Big Mama Thornton for years and years until today when I heard her on WKZE, the rare, local, musically diverse, eclectic FM station. Big Mama suffered from bad business deals, bad production on records, bad back up bands, and as you'll see in the following 1965 video, bad production values and bad packaging (this is how a diva dresses and is video'd?). But she was the person who first recorded Hound Dog, a song made even more famous by Elvis, and for which she probably didn't receive a dime. And she had an incredible voice. Listen to this: