She-Wolf

1	She-Wolf 4:38
2	Standing in My Doorway Crying 4:38
3	Jump, Baby, Jump 3:20
4	Take Me Home with You, Baby 2:45
5	Black Cat Bone 4:54
6	Boogie 'Side the Road 3:45
7	Hard Times 2:51
8	Crawdad Hole 2:04
9	Married Man Blues 4:00
10	Honey Bee 4:54
11	Overseas Blues 3:18
12	Loving in the Moonlight 4:51
13	Bullyin' Well 2:19
14	Jessie's Boogie 3:54
15	My Lord Do Just What He Say 3:37

Barnes & Noble

By wedding the syncopated march and stomp rhythms of the fife-and-drum band with the hard-driving riffs of late '50s electric Mississippi blues, Jessie Mae Hemphill created her own blues universe. Her songs are mournful, and her vocal and instrumental repetitions transform reflections on the everyday like the self-explanatory "Standing in My Doorway Crying" and "Black Cat Bone" into a series of prayerful laments. On "She Wolf" and "Loving in the Moonlight" she plays guitar with a strong chugging and droning rhythmic foundation which evokes chain gang work songs, as she moans, whoops, and speaks lyrics with a voice as thick as molasses. Yet her sound is so primal, hypnotic, and lusty, even relentless, that it transcends any sense of despair. SHE WOLF represents her first recordings, but lack of promotion as well as a stroke in 1993 cut short the career of a singular musician who gave an edgy, modern sound to traditional styles. Don Palmer

All Music Guide

This compact disc reissue gathers up all the original tracks from Jessie Mae's 1980 debut album for the French Vogue label along with four remixed bonus tracks, all seeing their first domestic release. Recorded by folklorist Dr. David Evans (who also contributes second guitar on 13 of the 15 tracks here) in various locales around Memphis and Mississippi, the music stays down-home and primal throughout. There's a strong sense of rhythm that permeates this record, whether it comes from the fife and drum-derived percussion work of Calvin Jackson and Joe Hicks or simply Jessie Mae's own foot-operated tambourine driving the beat home. Highlights include "Jessie's Boogie" and "Standing In My Doorway Crying" (both sides of her first 45 single, underwritten by the National Endowment for the Arts), "Honey Bee," "Boogie Side of the Road," "Crawdad Hole," "Lovin' In the Moonlight," "Married Man Blues" and the title track. The blues, real and raw. Cub Koda