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A queer, Black "biography in essays" about the performer who gave us "Hound Dog," "Ball and Chain," and other songs that changed the course of American music.. Born in Alabama in 1926, raised in the church, appropriated by white performers, buried in an indigent's grave - Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton's life events epitomize the blues - but Lynnée Denise pushes past the stereotypes to read Thornton's life through a Black, queer, feminist lens and reveal an artist who was an innovator across her four-decade-long career. Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters "samples" elements of Thornton's art - and, occasionally, the author's own story - to create "a biography in essays" that explores the life of its subject as a DJ might dig through a crate of records.