somerset:

so-treu:

Big Mama Thornton - They Call Me Big Mama (1957)

Big Mama’s last recording for Peacock in 1957 was pure fifties style Rock and Roll. “They Call Me Big Mama” is a hilarious, Bluesy, Rock and Roll number in which Big Mama boasts of her sexual prowess. She belts out the lines “They Call me Big Mama ‘cause I weigh three hundred pounds; I can rock and I can roll and can really go to town.” Keep in mind the term “rock and roll” at the time was Black American English slang for sex. She further wails “I’ll satisfy you this morning if you take me home with you; you’ll never be blue ‘cause I know just what to do.”

source: CD review

I also think it’s funny (apart from the ongoing conversation of sexuality) that black women never get credited for any kind of “feminist” work. I mean, here is a woman in 1957 (it wouldn’t be any less transgressive nowadays though) not just talking about her sexuality but also proudly proclaiming that she weighs 300 pounds. If this was a white woman, she’d be a modern day feminist hero for that fact alone I think.