Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton was born on Dec. 11, 1926, in Ariton, Alabama, the youngest of seven children of Rev. George and Mattie Thornton. She learned to play the harmonica at age eight and is said to have entertained people in front of the Ariton bus station. After her mother died when Willie Mae was 14, she was taken in by the Florence Jackson family of Ariton. As a teenager she moved to Montgomery, worked at a local bar, and sometimes filled in for the bar's singer. In 1941 she joined promoter Sammy Green's Georgia-based Hot Harlem Revue for seven years, gaining stage and singing experience and the title "the new Bessie Smith." She came to be called "Big Mama" because of her 6'3", 300-pound frame as well as her powerful voice and stage presence. In 1948 she settled in Houston, Texas, and in 1951 Black entrepreneur Don Robey signed her to Peacock Records after being impressed by the self-taught drummer and harmonica player. In 1952, working with Robey, Johnny Otis had the teenage songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller write "Hound Dog," which Thornton recorded. Released in 1952 with the B side "They Call Me Big Mama," it sold almost two million copies, and Elvis Presley recorded it three years later, making it a rock and roll classic. Thornton is best known for "Hound Dog" and for her original song "Ball and Chain," later made famous by Janis Joplin and others. After moving to the San Francisco Bay area in the early 1960s, she toured in the U.S., Europe, and Canada with blues performers such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Buddy Guy. She played the 1969 Ann Arbor Blues Fest, Carnegie Hall, the Fillmore, Newport Jazz Fest, Monterey Jazz Festival, and more, released seven albums, and was featured on many compilations. Before her death in 1984, she was elected to the Blues Hall of Fame in Memphis; she was later elected to the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 2020 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2024. In 2004, "Hound Dog" and "Ball and Chain" were included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll." Thornton died at age 57 and is buried in Inglewood, California, and her legacy as a pioneer for women in music lives on.