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| Jessie
Mae Hemphill, Como, MS 1995 |
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| Blues guitarist/singer Jessie Mae Hemphill's upbringing was steeped in Mississippi Hill country musical traditions taught to her by her grandfather Sid Hemphill, aunt Rosa Lee Hill, and her extended musical family. Female blues guitarists of Hemphill's generation are rare because of the social strictures and danger associated with the lifestyle. Jessie Mae, however, has always known how to take care of herself in a hostile world. "My mother carried her gun all the time," says Hemphill. "She was a pistol-packing mama so I'm a pistol-packing mama." Jessie Mae fired her mother's pistol for the first time at age nine, gunning for an 18 year old boy whom she thought was her boyfriend as he passed by her house with his 19 year old girlfriend. "I shot at that boy FIVE times. They were RUNNING! He run off and left his hat. She broke the heel off her shoe. And the only thing that saved them was they were going down a hill and I shot into a bank [of ground]," Hemphill says with a laugh. | ||||||||||