Lizzie Douglass ran away from Walls, Miss., to Beale Street at age 13. She toured with the circus, played for dimes, and was a prostitute. She and her husband were signed by Columbia in 1930, and the label gave her the nickname. She played and recorded through the 1950s, settling in Chicago. She died in a Memphis nursing home in 1973. In 1996, Bonnie Raitt paid for her tombstone, which is in Walls.
Memphis Minnie’s Birthday
