(1934-2006)

Singer and blues woman Jessie Mae Hemphill passed away Saturday, July 22. The world had not heard her guitar playing since she’d had a stroke in 1993, but she was still singing spirituals and songs. She came from and lived in the isolated hill country of Northern Mississippi, an area as musically fertile as its neighboring Delta, a primal place with kudzu-covered mounds and jagged river culverts. Despite her sweet, grandmotherly presence, she was one tough mother. On the cover ...