Billed as Mississippi Matilda, she recorded four self-penned sides, including her signature song, "Hard Working Woman.
[8] The two guitar accompaniment to Mississippi Matilda's vocals were supplied by her husband Sonny Boy Nelson and Willie Harris.
[2] As Bluebird stated on their liner notes, Mississippi Matilda "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".
In 1942, the Powells relocated to Greenville, Mississippi, where her husband had found employment at the John Deere plant, to help support their by now large family.