NRR Project: Memphis Minnie, 'Me and My Chauffeur Blues' (May 21, 1941)

 

NRR Project: ‘Me and My Chauffeur Blues’

Composed and performed by Memphis Minnie

Recorded May 21, 1941

2:49

I can’t say much about this one, as Paul Garon’s essay on itat the National Recording Registry is superb. Read it!

Memphis Minnie (1897-19730, born Lizzie Douglas, lived in the Deep South and took up her instrument early. By the age of 13, she was performing on street corners for money. Her expert picking was matched with a stentorian voice that could make itself heard clearly amid the noise of everyday life.

She was an anomaly; there had been great women blues singers, but few who played an instrument, sang, and generated her own material. In that way, she was an early musical entrepreneur. The air of authority she exudes in her recordings is unmistakable. She was a brave performer, raw and honest, at times downright lewd.

“Won't you be my chauffeur?

Won't you be my chauffeur?

I wants him to drive me

I wants him to drive me downtown

Yes, he drives so easy

I can't turn him down

 

But I don't want him

But I don't want him

To be ridin' these girls

To be ridin' these girls around

So I'm gonna steal me a pistol

Shoot my chauffeur down

 

Well, I must buy him

Well, I must buy him

A brand new V8

A brand new V8 Ford

Then he won't need no passengers

I will be his load

 

Going to let my chauffeur

Going to let my chauffeur

Drive me around the

Drive me around the world

Then he can be my little boy

Yes, I'll be his girl”

She was enormously influential. She recorded in the neighborhood of 200 songs. This song was covered by Jefferson Airplane, and Led Zeppelin took her “When the Levee Breaks” to new heights.

In 1996, Bonnie Raitt bought her a tombstone. Her family attended. The inscription is perhaps the most eloquent I have read:

“The hundreds of sides Minnie recorded are the perfect material to teach us about the blues. For the blues are at once general, and particular, speaking for millions, but in a highly singular, individual voice. Listening to Minnie's songs we hear her fantasies, her dreams, her desires, but we will hear them as if they were our own”

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: the Deep River Boys sing They Look Like Men of War.