Sta-Sof-Fro & Vaseline Baby

Remembering Big Maybelle (Thursday, May 1, 1924 – Sunday, January 23, 1972) Born Mabel Louise Smith in Jackson, Tennessee, Big Maybelle came up singing gospel before moving into rhythm and blues as a teenager. She began performing professionally in the 1930s, including work with Dave Clark’s Memphis Band, and later appeared with the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, placing her in that vital bridge between gospel, blues, swing, jump blues, and early R&B. Her career broke through nationally after signing with Okeh Records in the early 1950s. Producer Fred Mendelsohn gave her the name Big Maybelle, a stage name that matched the force, grain, humor, and emotional weight of her voice. Her 1952 recording “Gabbin’ Blues” became a major R&B hit, followed by records such as “Way Back Home” and “My Country Man.” Big Maybelle’s most important recordings include “Candy,” “Gabbin’ Blues,” “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” and “96 Tears.” Her 1956 recording “Candy” was later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, and her 1955 version of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” PRECEDED Jerry Lee Lewis’s famous rock and roll version. At her height, she was a commanding figure on the R&B circuit, appearing at major venues including the Apollo Theater and in connection with the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, where her performance world crossed into the jazz documentary space of “Jazz on a Summer’s Day.” Her voice could be tender, comic, raw, and devastating, often in the same performance. On January 23, 1972, Big Maybelle died in Cleveland, Ohio, at age 47. The Blues Foundation states that she died in a comatose state while suffering from diabetes, and other biographical sources describe her death as caused by a diabetic coma. Her final album, “Last of Big Maybelle,” was released after her death. In 2011, Big Maybelle was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame and her work still stands as evidence that early R&B, blues, gospel, and rock and roll were never cleanly separate lanes, they were overlapping Black American musical technologies carried by voices like hers. To this day, Big Maybelle’s legacy remains larger than the space she is usually given.

Happy Birthday Little Walter. Rock and Roll Hall of Famer - the first and only artist to date to be inducted specifically as a harmonica player.

Still don’t understand why Prince had a beef with Michael Jackson 😏🤭

Top three Michael Jackson’s song and you are not allowed to mention Thriller or Billie Jean.

Three Black men from Detroit are the visionaries of punk music. They are a band called Death. They are important to the history of music and further reminded that all music is rooted from Black culture.

NOW WHY WOULD HE DO THAT LMFAOOO😭😭😭

Kat Graham reveals some scenes she filmed as Diana Ross for ‘Michael’ were cut for legal reasons.