Big Time Sarah

CTL-E-6109 · Person · musician · 1953–2015

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07328 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6109.

Big Time Sarah, born Sarah Streeter on January 31, 1953 in Coldwater, Mississippi, was an American blues singer raised in Chicago, where she sang in gospel choirs in South Chicago churches. At fourteen she began singing blues at Morgan's Lounge, and in the 1970s she played with musicians including Magic Slim, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells and Sunnyland Slim. Her work with Sunnyland Slim led to her first solo release, a single on his Airway Records label. Teamed with Zora Young and Bonnie Lee as Blues with the Girls, she toured Europe in 1982 and recorded an album in Paris. From 1989 she performed with her own band, the BTS Express, becoming a featured performer in North Side Chicago blues clubs and at blues festivals. She recorded for Chicago's Delmark Records from 1993, releasing Lay It on 'em Girls (1993), Blues in the Year One-D-One (1996) and A Million of You (2001). Big Time Sarah died on June 13, 2015, aged 62, from heart complications in a Chicago-area nursing home.

The record

• Also known as: Sarah Streeter, Big Time Sarah and the BTS Express

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 4 — 747 Program, Wave 11; fourth Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Big Time Sarah entity in the live graph at 3,763 entities (exact / normalized / alias match + token containment; CLEAR). ID CTL-E-6109 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 4 — Scan Tail Wave 3 packet ordered reserve, position 24 of 35 (corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked clean survivor #1832). The scan supplied the NAME STRING ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — Black Chicago first: a Chicago record — raised in Chicago, formed on its South Side gospel and club circuit, and recorded for Chicago's Delmark Records. Vital status: Deceased. Sarah Streeter died June 13, 2015, aged 62, from heart complications in a Chicago-area nursing home (Wikipedia citing ABC7 Chicago, and AllMusic biography; both accessed 2026-10-16). One date-list source phrases the cause as heart disease — wording variance noted in conflicts. STATISTICS — STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Discography as sourced (accessed 2026-10-16): Undecided (1985); Lay It on 'em Girls (Delmark, 1993); Blues in the Year One-D-One (Delmark, 1996); A Million of You (Delmark, 2001). CONFLICT SHOWN, NOT BLENDED: Sunnyland Slim's label is spelled Airway Records in the AllMusic/Wikipedia line and Airways Records in one Wikipedia variant — the packet uses Airway, following AllMusic. Her band is named the BTS Express in the discography sources and the Big Time Express in one secondary summary — BTS Express is used. MEDIA: photo HELD (Big Time Sarah, Lay It on 'em Girls Delmark album-cover portrait (1993) — specific image to be verified in a later PHOTO-001 pass; no license claimed. — named candidate only; file-level rights verification per CTL-PHOTO-001 still required; no license claimed); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-6109-big-time-sarah.svg); video HELD (no matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged); map N/A (person record). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Persons carry no map in the packet standard.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created chart (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced statistics and timeline fact) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged.) | audio = HELD (No rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged.)

Relationships

• Delmark Records — recorded for
  Streeter recorded her Delmark albums in Chicago (1993–2001), as stated in her record

Sources

• AllMusic biography by Ron Wynn, via Qobuz, "Big Time Sarah" (accessed 2026-10-16) — Sarah Streeter moved to Chicago from Coldwater, Mississippi as a child; sang in South Side gospel choirs; blues debut at Morgan's Lounge at 14; worked with Buddy Guy, Junior Wells and Sunnyland Slim; single on Slim's Airway label; formed her band in 1989; Delmark debut Lay It on 'Em Girls (1993), Blues in the Year One-D-One (1996), A Million of You (2001); died of heart complications in a Chicago-area nursing home in 2015, aged 62 — https://www.qobuz.com/ca-en/interpreter/big-time-sarah/87053 (primary source · build store)
• Wikipedia, "Big Time Sarah" (accessed 2026-10-16), citing ABC7 Chicago for the death report — Sarah Streeter, January 31, 1953 – June 13, 2015; raised in Chicago; Blues with the Girls European tour 1982 with Zora Young and Bonnie Lee; BTS Express from 1989; recorded for Delmark 1993–2015; died June 13, 2015, aged 62, from heart complications — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Time_Sarah (build store)
• AllMusic, "Lay It on 'em Girls — Big Time Sarah" review (accessed 2026-10-16) — 1993 Delmark album spotlighting the BTS Express, the band Streeter formed in 1989; covers including three Willie Dixon numbers — https://www.AllMusic.com/album/lay-it-on-em-girls-mw0000098648 (primary source · build store)

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Record CTL-E-6109 · Combined Graph record U-07328 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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