Mississippi Matilda (Hattiesburg, MS, January 27, 1914) was a blues singer.
Eugene Powell, also known as Sonny Boy Nelson was living with Matilda Witherspoon, and had struck up a musical partnership with guitarist Willie ‘Brother’ Harris in about 1930. At the session, Powell played his customised Silvertone guitar, which he’d fitted with a metal resonator and an additional C string, tuned an octave higher. He began by playing on two titles by Lonnie and Sam Chatmon, then he and Harris accompanied Eugene’s girlfriend Matilda on four songs which constitute her entire discography. “Mississippi Matilda”, as Bluebird dubbed is a fascinating singer, especially on her masterpiece, Hard Working Woman, with its deliberately breathless falsettos suddenly descending into her natural register at the end of the verses. Powell plays lilting guitar figures behind her, and Harris supplies a somewhat distantly recorded, but attractively dissonant, chordal backup. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.