📍The Ville, St. Louis, MO 63113, USA
1926 – 1944“I was born in October 1926 in St Louis, Missouri, the fourth of six children, and I grew up in The Ville, a proud, self-contained Black neighbourhood in the north of the city, one of the few places in St Louis where Black families could own their homes. It had its own schools, hospital, churches, businesses and professionals. My father, Henry, was a carpenter and contractor and a deacon at Antioch Baptist Church, and my mother, Martha, was a college-educated school principal, which was rare for a Black woman of her generation. Ours was a disciplined, churchgoing, middle-class home. I began singing in the church choir at six, and I did carpentry work with my father and learned photography from my uncle, a professional photographer. The radio brought me blues, country and swing, from Muddy Waters to Nat King Cole and Bob Wills. At Sumner High School, the first Black high school west of the Mississippi, I gave my first public performance in 1941, playing a blues song with a friend, and a guitarist I knew taught me my first chords. As a teenager I got into serious trouble, and I spent three years in a reformatory, where I sang in a quartet. When I came home, I married, worked in a car plant and as a hairdresser, and played guitar in St Louis clubs at night. In 1955 Maybellene made me a star, and songs like Johnny B. Goode helped create rock and roll. I lived in the St Louis area all my life, and I played monthly at Blueberry Hill in the Delmar Loop for many years.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today