Saturday, June 22, 2024, 7 PM
Pamela Sneed
A Tribute to Big Mama Thornton
The CARR center features a musical tribute to Big Mama Thornton, performed by Pamela Sneed, a New York-based poet, performer, and visual artist, along with musicians Mara Rosenbloom and Vivia DeCocini.
Pamela Sneed’s genre-defying work is rooted in her commitment to activism and intersectional modes of thinking, from the 1990s AIDS crisis to the Black lesbian working-class experience. An example is her most recent and widely celebrated book, Funeral Diva (2020)—a poetic memoir about coming-of-age in the AIDS era, and its effects on life and art.
Often working from an autobiographical impulse, Pamela Sneed brings her recently developed performance project, A Tribute of Big Mama Thornton, to Detroit for the first time. Premiering in New York at the beginning of 2023 and brought to life in the style of a juke joint—an establishment featuring music, dancing, and drinking, A Tribute to Big Mama Thornton honors singer and songwriter Big Mama Thornton. Until her recent induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2024, Big Mama Thornton was an unsung rock and roll pioneer known for her gender-expansive style.
Through bringing her hits to life on stage, Sneed locates the legacy of Big Mama Thornton within the queer canon through an examination of her presence as a Black and transgender performer.
In a prose poem-cum-newsletter for the Poetry Project in 2020, Sneed writes: ‘Like Big Mama Thornton, I was raised in the church. My grandfather was a Baptist preacher. My grandmother sang spirituals. I credit the Black church for my love and introduction to poetry, the music and art I was surrounded by, and through the lyricism of preachers and women’s testimonies, I learned poetry. Through this upbringing, I identified with Big Mama Thornton and how she came to music.’