Monday, 12 May 2014

Try a Little Tenderness: The Lost Legacy of Little Miss Cornshucks




 Author and poet Salena Godden invites you to join her as she goes in search of the missing legacy of Little Miss Cornshucks, the best blues singer you never heard….
Repeated BBC Radio 4 / Sunday May 25th 1.30pm


Chicago. It’s the late 1930’s and a young Mildred Cummings from Dayton, Ohio is barefoot, standing in the spotlight on stage, wearing that same old shabby dress and a broken straw hat. This is Little Miss Cornshucks and she has the audience in the palm of her hand, a unique act and larger than life personality. By the 1940’s she made top-billing at nightclubs across America, performing heartbreaking ballads. The great Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records, the man who pioneered rhythm and blues said “She could sing the blues better than anybody I’ve ever heard.”


'She put the teardrop in 'Try A Little Tenderness'

Click here to find it on your BBC iplayer

We'll storify our US road trip #livetweets on twitter,
please follow hashtags #cornshucks
 


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Salena Godden portrait by Olivia Rutherford


Catch Salena Godden live this spring time, shaking the darling buds of May

May 13th / Unbound Presents Literary Death Match / Soho House / London

May 16th / Word Life / Shakespeares / Sheffield

May 22nd / LC Collective Album Launch / Jazz Cafe / London

May 28th /  Out-Spoken / The Forge / Camden / London

June 8th / Garden of Abandon / Chelsea Fringe Festival / London



June 3rd / Hammer & Tongue Tour / Hysteria / Hackney / London
 
June 4th / Hammer & Tongue Tour /  Bird Cage / Bristol
 
June 5th / Hammer & Tongue Tour / Komedia / Brighton
 
June 9th / Hammer & Tongue Tour /  Green Note / Camden / London
 
June 10th / Hammer & Tongue Tour /  Old Fire Station / Oxford
 
June 11th / Hammer & Tongue Tour / The Fountain / Cambridge


Salena Godden portrait by Olivia Rutherford

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'Fishing in the Aftermath / Poems 1994-2014' is out in July with Burning Eye Books  

'Springfield Road' will be published in September with Unbound

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