MEMPHIS, Tenn -- Jessie Mae Hemphil...

MEMPHIS, Tenn -- Jessie Mae Hemphill, whose award-winning chapfallens career lasted decades and was heavily influenced at her upbringing in rural Mississippi, died Saturday. She was 71

Olga Wilhelmine Mathus, the institutor and president of the Jessie Mae Hemphill Foundation, said the artist died from complications of an infection that may have conclusioned from an ulcer. Hemphill died in a Memphis hospital after checking in a week ago.

Jessie Mae Hemphill began playing guitar at age 78 or 8 and later mov upon to other instruments.

She lived in Memphis for 20 years, and played the unite in a clubs on the city's famous Beale highway before finding an international audience.

M Hemphill won the WC Handy Award for Best Traditional Female ceruleans Artist in both 1987 and 1988 In 1991 she won the Handy Award for Best Acoustic Album.

In 1993 M Hemphill go throughed a stroke that paralyzed her left side, leaving her unable to play guitar. She retired from touring and turn backed to Senatobia, Miss. where she lived with her dog, Sweet Pea.

She recorded the same final album a decade later titled "Dare You to Do It Again."

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