Born Lizzie Douglas near Algiers, Louisiana, on June 3, 1897; she would become one of the most influential blues guitarists and singers of the 20th century.
Lizzie Douglas, later known to the world as Memphis Minnie, was born on June 3, 1897, in Algiers, Louisiana, a small community across the Mississippi River from New Orleans. She was the eldest of thirteen children born to Abe and Gertrude Douglas, and was originally nicknamed 'Kid' by her family.
Her family relocated to Walls, Mississippi, just south of Memphis, Tennessee, when she was a young child, and it was there that she first encountered the guitar and banjo, receiving her first instrument as a gift at around age eight or ten. By her early teens she was already skilled enough to run away from home periodically to perform on Beale Street in Memphis, absorbing the vibrant street-corner and juke-joint blues culture that would define her artistry.
This birth date marks the origin point of a career that would make her one of the few women to achieve major commercial success as a blues guitarist in a field overwhelmingly dominated by men. Her technical mastery of the guitar, her fierce independence, and her prolific songwriting would eventually influence generations of blues and rock musicians, making her early life in the Mississippi Delta region a foundational chapter in American vernacular music history.