Edith Wilson (singer)

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Edith Wilson (born September 2, 1896 in Louisville (Kentucky) as Edith Goodall , † March 30, 1981 in Chicago ) was an American blues singer and actress. She was one of the early stars of African American musical theater .

Live and act

Edith Wilson came from a middle-class African American family; Her ancestors included former Vice President John C. Breckinridge . She began her career in vaudeville with appearances at the Park Theater in Louisville, where she appeared with the blues singer Lena Wilson and her brother, the pianist Danny Wilson, whom she soon married; the three then performed successfully in Baltimore and toured together on the east coast of the USA .

In 1921 she became known when she replaced Mamie Smith in Perry Bradford's musical revue Put And Take . Bradford also arranged her first Columbia records in 1921 with Johnny Dunn's Jazz Hounds ( Nervous Blues, Vampin 'Liza Jane ); between 1921 and 1922 17 record pages were produced for OKeh Records . She then toured with Lew Leslie's Plantation Revue (which first performed at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem , later From Dover Street To Dixie ), with which she also made a guest appearance in London in 1923 . Upon her return to New York, she appeared with Florence Mills on the music revue Dixie To Broadway . Until 1926 she appeared in various theaters and cabarets (including Club Alabam ) in the New York area before becoming a vocalist in the Sam Wooding Orchestra, with whom she appeared on the Chocolate Kiddies show with Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller ( The Thousand Pounds of Harmony ), went on tour and made guest appearances in Western Europe, Turkey, Russia and Argentina until 1929. Further recordings were made in 1924 725 for Columbia ( How Come You Do Me Like You Do ), 1929 for Brunswick and 1930 for Victor .

In the 1930s she continued her touring tours with various musical revues and also appeared with the orchestras of Fess Williams , Cab Calloway , Jimmie Lunceford , Noble Sissle and Lucky Millinder . During World War II, she toured frequently on USO shows for troop entertainment and had minor speaking roles in feature films, such as in the Humphrey Bogart / Lauren Bacall classic To Have and Have Not (1944).

Cakewalk Sheet Music Cover with the Aunt Jemima motif from 1899.

In the early 1940s she starred in Amos N 'Andy radio show and continued to appear in music theaters. She made radio appearances in the 1950s and toured as Aunt Jemima on the Quaker Oats Company's advertising tours. She also received criticism for the clichéd portrayal of an African American woman. Wilson remained active in show business until 1963 before she stopped her appearances and henceforth worked for the Negro Actors Guild. In the 1970s she was again active in the music business and went on tour with Eubie Blake (1972), Little Brother Montgomery and Terry Waldo . With Montgomery, the banjoist Ikey Robinson and the wind players Franz and Preston Jackson , she recorded the album He May Be Your Man but He Comes to See Me Sometimes for Delmark ; In 1974 another album was created for the Wolverine label and individual pieces in 1976. Her last appearance was in 1980 at the Newport Jazz Festival . She died in early March 1981 of an intracerebral hemorrhage .

Appreciation

Edith Wilson was one of the line of female singers of the 1920s who also included blues songs in their repertoire, which mainly consisted of cabaret and show pieces. Although she lacked the emotional depth of artists like Bessie Smith , Ma Rainey and Ida Cox , it was thanks to her that the classic blues song form was brought closer to a white audience in the USA and Europe.

Discographic notes

  • Johnny Dunn & Edith Wilson: Vol. 1 1921-1922 (Document)
  • Lena Wilson & Edith Wilson: Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, Volume 2 (1924-31) (Document)

Sources / web links

Lexical entry

  • Lawrence Cohn (Ed.): Nothing But the Blues The Music and the Musicians , 1993, Abbeville Publishing Group, New York ISBN 1-55859-271-7

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Edith Wilson at Redhotjazz
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Edith Wilson at Allmusic (English)
  3. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Information from davehoekstra (PDF; 22 kB)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.davehoekstra.com
  4. ↑ Review of the album He May be Your Man but He Comes to See Me Sometimes at Allmusic (English). Retrieved February 7, 2011.
  5. ↑ Information from aaregistry ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.aaregistry.org
personal data
SURNAME Wilson, Edith
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Goodall, Edith
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz singer and actress
DATE OF BIRTH September 2, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Louisville (Kentucky)
DATE OF DEATH March 30, 1981
Place of death Chicago