Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton, like too many 20th-century jazz divas, from Bessie Smith to Billie Holiday, led a hard-luck life. She was born in Montgomery, Ala., in 1926, daughter of a puritanical preacher father and a gospel-singing mother. After her mother's death when she was 14, she set out to make her way in the world of music. She sang and recorded with many of the jazz greats, but she was too naive and uneducated to reap much profit from a spectacular career. She scored a national hit with Lieber and Stoller's "Hound Dog," but three years later Elvis Presley turned it into a megahit, eclipsing her efforts. She wrote a song called "Ball n' Chain," which was co-opted by Janis Joplin. But hard living and hard drinking took their toll, and Thornton died at age 57 in a Los Angeles boarding house, a result of diabetes and heart failure.
Here, jazz singer Barbara Morrison plays an earthy, impassioned Big Mama -- a primal, full-throated, aggressive blues shouter but sweet and mellow when the need arises. She performs several of Thornton's signature songs, including "I'm On My Way to Canaan Land," "Ball n' Chain," and "Bumble Bee Blues." She's backed up by a terrific four-man combo: nimble-fingered Charles Small on guitar, Ronald Bishop on piano, Peter Buck on drums, and Richard Taylor on bass guitar. A quartet of able singer-actors plays the men in her life. Lou Beatty plays Sammy Green, impresario of the Hot Harlem Revue, which helped to launch her career; writer Larry James Robinson plays her patriarchal father; Larney "Dapper" Johnson is bandleader Johnny Otis; and Phillip Bell is performer Johnny Ace, who shot himself in the head before Thornton's eyes in a reckless game of Russian roulette. Pysa Noel provides the athletic choreography.
Musically, the show is impeccable, but a more theatrically savvy script would generate more excitement.
Presented by and at the Stella Adler Theatre,
6773 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood.
Jan. 22–Apr. 12. Thu.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 and 6 p.m.
(310) 462-1439 or Barbara Morrison