In an unforgiving business, Mayfield, the widow of blues great Percy Mayfield, was one sure source of help and encouragement, said friends and family. "The Grammy people don't know who she is, but she was queen in this community," said blues artist Barbara Morrison, a longtime friend. Tina Mayfield died Dec.
14 of gallbladder cancer at her home in Palmdale. She was 77. Over the years she befriended and assisted a long list of blues artists, including Big Mama Thornton and Lowell Fulson.
She was not a musician or a songwriter, but "she was a good businesswoman," said Billy Diamond, a friend who served with Mayfield in the International Blues Society. "She's taken care of business." Tom Reed, author of "The Black Music History of Los Angeles Its Roots," called Mayfield a driving force behind "blues in this city.
" "She was able to put together and produce some of the most important blues shows here in Los Angeles," Reed told The Times this week. "A real down-home, strong, aesthetically pure blues show." Mayfield was born Earnestine Jermany on Oct.
17, 1929, in Stamps, Ark., the second of 16 children. Her father, Hugh Jermany, was a schoolteacher.
Her mother, Zoreeda, was a housewife. Blues was a part of the landscape in Arkansas, and even as a child, Mayfield was drawn to it. But the same sound that attracted her was frowned on by her mother, who belonged to a Pentecostal church.
Under her mother's strict religious teachings, there was no place for the blues. Mayfield was faced with a choice: Leave the blues alone or find a way to enjoy it in spite of her mother's views. "They snuck around with the music," said her daughter Rennie Euwing.
"It inspired her to achieve faster to move on and get educated, so she could go do what she desired to do." After graduating from high school in Stamps, Mayfield married Clarence Euwing in the mid-1940s and left the South. Before divorcing many years later, the couple would have five children.
In addition to Rennie Euwing, of Palmdale, Mayfield is survived by a son, Edward Euwing of Caldwell, Ark., and three other daughters, Linda Euwing of Palmdale, Eliza Euwing-Jones of Los Angeles and Dena Euwing-Kendrick of Palmdale. Over the years, Mayfield lived in Chicago, Detroit and New York, always taking in the blues scene.
While living in Wisconsin, she earned a degree in nursing and other medical specialties and began a career in the medical field. But her love for blues was a constant and her knowledge encyclopedic. She knew the biographies and discographies of artists and followed their careers, including that of Percy Mayfield, a singer and composer from Minden, La.
, whom she later befriended and then married. He was known as the "poet laureate of the blues." He wrote and performed his hit "Please Send Me Someone to Love" and found great success as a songwriter for Ray Charles, penning "Hit the Road, Jack," "Danger Zone" and others.
The performer, a resident of Los Angeles, was also an astute businessman. He offered his future wife, who moved to Los Angeles in 1972, on-the-job training. "She was his right-hand man," Rennie Euwing said.
Mayfield used what she learned over the years to help artists, especially older performers who sometimes did not understand contracts and how to obtain royalties owed to them. "Some of them couldn't read," Morrison said. "She was just real smart.
She would let them know what was happening . She would articulate in their terms.
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