Lizzie Douglas (June 3, 1897 - August 6, 1973), better known as Memphis Minnie, was a blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter whose recording career lasted from the 1920s to the 1950s. She recorded around 200 songs, such as "Bumble Bee", "Nothing in Rambling", and "Me and My Chauffeur Blues".
She learned to play the banjo by the age of 10 and the guitar by the age of 11, when she started playing at parties. In 1910, at the age of 13, she ran away from home to live on Beale Street, in Memphis. She played on street corners for most of her teenage years.
She recorded for Columbia, Vocalion, Decca and Okeh. By 1941 Minnie had started playing electric guitar, and in May of that year she recorded her biggest hit, "Me and My Chauffeur Blues".
An anecdote from Big Bill Broonzy´s autobiography, Big Bill Blues, recounts a cutting contest between Minnie and Broonzy in a Chicago nightclub, for the prize of a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of gin. Each singer had to sing two songs; after Broonzy sang "Just a Dream" and "Make My Getaway," Minnie won the prize with "Me and My Chauffeur Blues" and "Looking the World Over".
She died in Memphis of a stroke in 1973.
