Little Miss Cornshucks – 1947-1951
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Posted On September 1, 2003
Diving into the cloudy, murky water of musicology, seeking answers about the unsung among the detritus of broken dreams, forgotten genius and missed opportunities, doesn’t usually earn those who choose that journey a hell of a lot of money. But most of those embarking on these quests aren’t worried about that. Better to illuminate ignored talents, especially those possessing missing-link qualities, rewriting the cloudier corners of musical history.
Barry Mazor did just that in ND #45 with his exhaustive, compelling safari into the long ignored, often tragic career of Mildred Cummings, a.k.a. Little Miss Cornshucks. He introduced readers to a singer whose pivotal role in the development of modern R&B has been ignored as much as the roles of Lionel Hampton and Louis Jordan have been acknowledged and celebrated. No Broadway musical ever celebrated Cornshucks, the singer who inspired Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun to enter the record biz.
In her heyday, Cornshucks never had anything approaching a huge R&B hit. Nonetheless, her gripping, intense rendition of “Try A Little Tenderness” inspired Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin and Sam Cooke. Likewise, her style deeply influenced white 1950s pop heartthrob Johnnie Ray’s high-emotion, full-throttle style. By fusing her approach with a pop repertoire, Ray reached an audience that Cornshucks could never hope to approach.
Beyond her exaggerated rural stage costumes, Cornshucks was a vocalist of truly mesmerizing power and almost operatic majesty and dynamics. Proof of that resides in the 21 tracks on this French compilation, which contains her complete 1947-51 studio recordings for Sunbeam, Miltone, Aladdin and Coral. Whether singing pop standards such as “Time After Time” or the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein chestnut “Why Was I Born” or the original “Cornshucks Blues”, she crept through her vocals, rarely approaching even a medium tempo.
No one, however, listened to Cornshucks for varied tempos. Her sense of space and catharsis, conversational phrasing and unswerving knack for wringing every molecule of emotion from a lyric were her true drawing card. The accompanists made little difference. She seemed equally at home with Marl Young’s somewhat ragged Chicago band, with Maxwell Davis’ more competent Los Angeles ensemble, and with recently deceased jazz master Benny Carter’s orchestra.
Two versions of her signature tune “So Long” support this point. Her 1947 original with Young and the 1950-51 remake with Carter are equally formidable vocally. But Carter, with his flair for synthesizing funk and elegance, provides a consistently classier framework. She was fortunate to record “Tenderness”, as well as “Papa Tree Top Blues” and the bouncy “Rock Me To Sleep”, her closest forays into “jump” tunes, with Carter.
Cornshucks’ remaining years were fraught with setbacks and aggravated by alcoholism. Her swan song, her 1960 Chess album (unlikely to be reissued, though it deserves to be), was a true last hurrah, mixing a faltering voice with moments of inspiration similar to Billie Holiday’s end-stage Verve and Columbia material. It didn’t matter. She’d already made her history on the 21 numbers here.
