Lillian Glinn (May 10, 1902 – July 22, 1978) was an American

classic female blues Classic female blues was an early form of blues music, popular in the 1920s. An amalgam of traditional folk blues and urban theater music, the style is also known as vaudeville blues. Classic blues were performed by female singers accompanied by ...

and

country blues Country blues (also folk blues, rural blues, backwoods blues, or downhome blues) is one of the earliest forms of blues music. The mainly solo vocal with acoustic fingerstyle guitar accompaniment developed in the rural Southern United States in t ...

singer and songwriter. She spent most of her career in

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

. Among her popular recordings were "Black Man Blues," "Doggin' Me Blues" and "Atlanta Blues." The blues historian

Paul Oliver Paul Hereford Oliver MBE (25 May 1927 – 15 August 2017) was an English architectural historian and writer on the blues and other forms of African-American music. He was equally distinguished in both fields, although it is likely that aficion ...

commented that there were a number of female blues singers who "deserve far greater recognition than they have had", and one of those he cited was Glinn.

Biography

Glinn was born in

Hillsboro, Texas Hillsboro is a city in and the county seat of Hill County, Texas, Hill County, Texas, United States. The population was 8,221 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. History Hillsboro was named for Hill County. At one point during Bon ...

, and later moved to

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

. She was first noticed singing

spirituals Spirituals (also known as Negro spirituals, African American spirituals, Black spirituals, or spiritual music) is a genre of Christian music that is associated with Black Americans, which merged sub-Saharan African cultural heritage with the e ...

in church by Hattie Burleson, who also went on to become a performer. Under Burleson's guidance, Glinn became successful in vaudeville and by 1927 was signed to a

recording contract A recording contract (commonly called a record contract or record deal) is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist (or group), where the artist makes a record (or series of records) for the label to sell and promote. Artists ...

with Columbia. Glinn took part in six recording sessions, in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

and Dallas, from 1927 to 1929. She recorded a total of twenty-two tracks. Her specialty was slow blues ballads utilizing her rich and heavy

contralto A contralto () is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range is the lowest female voice type. The contralto's vocal range is fairly rare; similar to the mezzo-soprano, and almost identical to that of a countertenor, typically b ...

voice. Her songs concentrated on the harsher side of life and sometimes included

sexual innuendo An innuendo is a hint, insinuation or intimation about a person or thing, especially of a denigrating or derogatory nature. It can also be a remark or question, typically disparaging (also called insinuation), that works obliquely by allusion ...

. Her recordings, including her April 1928 recording of "Shake It Down", gained her national recognition. The musicologist David Evans noted that "it is quite likely that many of Lillian Glinn's blues without any listed composer were her own material. If so, she would be the exception among Columbia's female blues singers." Following this period of activity, Glinn retreated to a church-based life and moved to California, where she married the Rev. O. P. Smith. Her entire recorded work was released in 1994 by

Document Records Document Records is an independent record label, founded in Austria and now based in Scotland, that specializes in reissuing vintage blues and jazz. The company has been recognised by The Blues Foundation, being honoured with a Keeping the ...

. She was interviewed and photographed by Paul Oliver in 1971.

Compilation discography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Glinn, Lillian 1902 births 1978 deaths American blues singers American women singers Songwriters from Texas Singers from Texas People from Hillsboro, Texas People from Dallas Classic female blues singers Country blues musicians 20th-century American women 20th-century American people

Biography

Compilation discography

See also

References