Rosa Lee Hill

Biography

Rosa Lee Hill (September 25, 1910 – October 22, 1968) was an American blues musician. Rosalie Hill was born in Como, Mississippi, United States. Her album, Rosa Lee Hill and Friends, was part of Fat Possum's campaign to reissue the recordings made by George Mitchell. It included Hill's niece, Jessie Mae Hemphill, as well as Jim Bunkley, Catherine Porter, Will Shade, Essie Mae Brooks, Precious Bryant, and Lottie Kate. Hill played music that was in the tradition of north Mississippi, singing aco...

Rosa Lee Hill (September 25, 1910 – October 22, 1968) was an American blues musician.

Rosalie Hill was born in Como, Mississippi, United States. Her album, Rosa Lee Hill and Friends, was part of Fat Possum's campaign to reissue the recordings made by George Mitchell. It included Hill's niece, Jessie Mae Hemphill, as well as Jim Bunkley, Catherine Porter, Will Shade, Essie Mae Brooks, Precious Bryant, and Lottie Kate.

Hill played music that was in the tradition of north Mississippi, singing acoustic blues that made use of subtly varied repetition. The daughter of Sid Hemphill, her song "Bullyin' Well", which was recorded by Alan Lomax, has been included on a number of releases over the years.

Hill died in October 1968, aged 58, in Senatobia, Mississippi.

Rosalie Hill was a daughter of the Mississippi Hill Country's composer, multi-instrumentalist, band leader, and musical patriarch Sid Hemphill. Sid taught Rosalie to play the guitar when she was six; by the time she was ten she was playing dances with him. The only two songs she recorded, for Alan Lomax, were marked by a desolate, keening intensity, although by all accounts she was a jolly woman. Her father died in 1961, after which, as blues researcher George Mitchell noted, most of the very musical Hemphills "just didn't feel like playing no more." Rosie hung up her guitar for a time, but by the time Mitchell visited in 1967 she was playing again, and recorded for him a barely less spry version of "Rolled and Tumbled." She died a year later. (Hill's first name often appears "Rosa Lee," but she signed her contract with Lomax "Rosalie.")

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