Billie Pierce

Billie Pierce

Wilhelminia "Billie" Pierce (born June 8, 1907 in Marianna (Florida) as Wilhelmina Goodson , † September 29, 1974 in New Orleans ) was an American pianist and singer of New Orleans jazz .

Billie Pierce was one of seven piano playing sisters; her parents were pianists too. In the early 1920s Billie Pierce accompanied the singer Bessie Smith for two weeks in a theater in Pensacola ; then she was on the road with the Might Wiggle Carnival Show and played in various bands with the same instrumentation as in the New Orleans style. At the end of the decade, she moved to New Orleans to replace her sister Sadie in Buddy Petit's band. In 1930 she became a member of Alphonse Picou's bands , with whom she stayed until 1932. She also played in the groups of Emile Barnes and George Lewis . In the mid-1930s she played inBlue Jay Club , where she met the cornetist Dee Dee Pierce (1904–1973), whom she married in 1935. Together with him, she founded and directed an ensemble that acted as the house band in Luthjen's Dance Hall in the 1950s . In the 1960s she made a remarkable comeback with her mix of blues , boogie woogie and jazz. She also played in the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and was active on the New Orleans jazz scene until the early 1970s. She died a few months after her husband.

Discographic notes

• Billie Pierce (with Raymod Burke) (American Music, 1950–1954)
• Gulf Coast Blues (Arhoolie, 1959)
• With Kid Thomas Valentine 1960 (504 Jazz, 1960)
• New Orleans - The Living Legends (Original Blues Classics, 1961)

swell

• Richard Cook & Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings . London, Penguin, 2006 (8th edition); ISBN 0-14-102327-9
• Linda Dahl Stormy Weather. The Music and Lives of a Century of Jazzwomen. Quartet Books. London 1984; ISBN 0-7043-2477-6

Web links

• Eugene Chadbourne : Billie Pierce biography at Allmusic (English)