Part IIa: Early Urban Blues:
Name Birth Year Death Year
Ora Alexander was an American classic female blues singer. She was active as a recording artist in the early 1930s, and her best known tracks were "You've Got to Save That Thing" and "I Crave Your Lovin' Every Day". Her meagre recordings were in a primitive barrelhouse style. Little is known of her life outside of music.
Alexander made ten recordings in New York City for Columbia Records, between May 1931 and March 1932, although only eight of that number were ever released. From the dates of the recordings it is known that she was placed in New York at least twice within one year, although it is not certain whether she ever resided there. Her pianist was not generally named on the recordings, although it is certain that Milton Davage was her accompanist on "I'm Wild About My Patootie". It is conjectured that Alexander may have accompanied herself on other tracks.
Her saucy, ribald style was exemplified in her song, "I Crave Your Lovin' Every Day" (1932), where the lyrics stated, "Come on daddy, get down on your knees, Sock it to my weak spot if you please".
Ora Alexander unknown unknown 
Gladys Bentley (August 12, 1907 – January 18, 1960) was an American blues singer during the Harlem Renaissance.
Bentley was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of American George L. Bentley and his wife, a Trinidadian, Mary Mote. She appeared at Harry Hansberry's "Clam House" on 133rd Street, one of New York City's most notorious gay speakeasies, in the 1920s, and headlined in the early thirties at Harlem's Ubangi Club, where she was backed up by a chorus line of drag queens. She dressed in men's clothes (including a signature tuxedo and top hat), played piano, and sang her own raunchy lyrics to popular tunes of the day in a deep, growling voice while flirting outrageously with women in the audience.
On the decline of the Harlem speakeasies with the repeal of Prohibition, she relocated to southern California, where she was billed as "America's Greatest Sepia Piano Player", and the "Brown Bomber of Sophisticated Songs". She was frequently harassed for wearing men's clothing. She claimed that she had married a white woman in Atlantic City.
Bentley was openly lesbian during her early career, but during the McCarthy Era, she started wearing dresses, married a man (who later denied that they ever married), and studied to be a minister, claiming to have been "cured" by taking female hormones. She died, aged 52, from pneumonia in 1960.
Fictional characters based on Bentley appeared in Carl Van Vechten's Parties, Clement Woods's Deep River, and Blair Niles's Strange Brother. She recorded for the OKeh, Victor, Excelsior, and Flame labels.
Gladys Bentley 1907 1960 
Lucille Bogan (April 1, 1897 – August 10, 1948) was an American blues singer, among the first to be recorded. She also recorded under the pseudonym Bessie Jackson. The sexologist and music critic, Ernest Borneman, stated that Bogan along with Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, was in "the big three of the blues".
She was born Lucille Anderson in Amory, Mississippi, United States, and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. In 1916, she married Nazareth Lee Bogan, a railway man, and gave birth to a son.
She first recorded vaudeville songs for Okeh Records in New York in 1923, with pianist Henry Callens. Later that year she recorded "Pawn Shop Blues" in Atlanta, Georgia, which was the first time a black blues singer had been recorded outside New York or Chicago. In 1927 she began recording for Paramount Records in Grafton, Wisconsin, where she recorded her first big success, "Sweet Petunia", which was covered by Blind Blake. She also recorded for Brunswick Records, backed by Tampa Red and Cow Cow Davenport.
By 1930 her recordings had begun to concentrate on drinking and sex, with songs such as "Sloppy Drunk Blues" (covered by Leroy Carr and others) and "Tricks Ain't Walkin' No More" (later recorded by Memphis Minnie). She also recorded the original version of "Black Angel Blues", which (as "Sweet Little Angel") was covered by B.B. King and many others. Trained in the rowdier juke joints of the 1920s, many of Bogan's songs, most of which she wrote herself, have thinly-veiled humorous sexual references. The theme of prostitution, in particular, featured prominently in several of her recordings.
In 1933 she returned to New York, and, apparently to conceal her identity, began recording as Bessie Jackson for the Banner (ARC) label. She was usually accompanied on piano by Walter Roland, with whom she recorded over 100 songs between 1933 and 1935, including some of her biggest commercial successes including "Seaboard Blues", "Troubled Mind", and "Superstitious Blues".
Her other songs included "Stew Meat Blues", "Coffee Grindin' Blues", "My Georgia Grind", "Honeycomb Man", "Mr. Screw Worm In Trouble", and "Bo Hog Blues". Her final recordings with Roland and Josh White included two takes of "Shave 'Em Dry", recorded in New York on Tuesday March 5, 1935. The unexpurgated alternate take is notorious for its explicit sexual references, a unique record of the lyrics sung in after-hours adult clubs. Another of her songs, "B.D. Woman's Blues", takes the position of a "bull dyke" ("B.D."), with the line "Comin' a time, B.D. women, they ain't gonna need no men" "They got a head like a sweet angel and they walk just like a natural man." "They can lay their jive just like a natural man."
She appears not to have recorded after 1935, and spent some time managing her son's jazz group, Bogan's Birmingham Busters, before moving to Los Angeles shortly before her death from coronary sclerosis in 1948.
She is interred at the Lincoln Memorial Park, Compton, Los Angeles County, California.
Lucille Bogan 1897 1948 
Bessie Brown (1890 – 1955) also known as "The Original" Bessie Brown, was an American classic female blues, jazz, and cabaret singer. She sometimes recorded under the pseudonyms of Sadie Green, Caroline Lee, and possibly Helen Richards. Brown was active as a recording artist from 1925 to 1929. Her best known tracks were "Ain't Much Good in the Best of Men Nowdays" and "Song from a Cotton Field".
She should not be confused (although often is in both biographies and discographies) with her namesake, Bessie Brown, who recorded vaudeville and blues styled duets with George W. Williams, over a similar timespan.
Brown was born in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. She recorded between the dates of November 10, 1925 and April 1, 1929. Her concurrent vaudeville career, saw her appear sometimes as a male impersonator. She also appeared in revues including Moonshine Revue, The Whirl Of Joy and Dark-Town Frolics. In addition, Brown took to the stage as a cabaret performer, primarily on the East Coast. On her recordings she sang in a deepened tone, without any notable African American dialect. Thus, to more than one commentator, her style was similar to Sophie Tucker.
Her recordings saw Brown backed by some of the best Harlem based musicians of the time. These included Thomas Morris and Rex Stewart (cornet); Charlie Irvis and Charlie Green (trombone); Coleman Hawkins and Buster Bailey (saxophone); Buddy Christian and Clarence Holiday (banjo); plus Porter Grainger, Clarence Williams and Fletcher Henderson (piano).
She left the music industry in 1932, and married Clarence Shaw in the early 1930s. She had three children, before dying of a heart attack in 1955.
The bulk of her known recorded work, Complete Recorded Works (1925-29), was made available in 1996 by Document Records. Somewhat confusingly, the compilation album also included four October 1929 recordings by the unrelated comedienne, Eliza "Liza" Brown.
Bessie Brown 1890 1955
Reverend Gary Davis, also Blind Gary Davis, (April 30, 1896 – May 5, 1972) was an American blues and gospel singer and guitarist, who was also proficient on the banjo and harmonica. His finger-picking guitar style influenced many other artists and his students in New York included Stefan Grossman, David Bromberg, Roy Book Binder, Larry Johnson, Woody Mann, Nick Katzman, Dave Van Ronk, Tom Winslow, and Ernie Hawkins. He has influenced the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Townes van Zandt, Wizz Jones, Jorma Kaukonen, Keb' Mo', Ollabelle, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, and Resurrection Band.
Reverend Gary Davis 1896 1972
Thomas Andrew Dorsey (July 1, 1899 – January 23, 1993) was known as "the father of black gospel music" and was at one time so closely associated with the field that songs written in the new style were sometimes known as "dorseys." Earlier in his life he was a leading blues pianist known as Georgia Tom.
As formulated by Dorsey, gospel music combines Christian praise with the rhythms of jazz and the blues. His conception also deviates from what had been, to that time, standard hymnal practice by referring explicitly to the self, and the self's relation to faith and God, rather than the individual subsumed into the group via belief.
Dorsey, who was born in Villa Rica, Georgia, was the music director at Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago from 1932 until the late 1970s. His best known composition, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord", was performed by Mahalia Jackson and was a favorite of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.. Another composition, "Peace in the Valley", was a hit for Red Foley in 1951 and has been performed by dozens of other artists, including Queen of Gospel Albertina Walker, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. Dorsey died in Chicago, aged 93.
In 2002, the Library of Congress honored his album Precious Lord: New Recordings of the Great Songs of Thomas A. Dorsey (1973), by adding it to the United States National Recording Registry.
Georgia Tom Dorsey 1899 1993 
Lil Green (December 22, 1919 – April 14, 1954) was an American blues singer and songwriter. She was among the leading female rhythm and blues singers of the 1940s, possessed with an ability to bring power to ordinary material and compose superior songs of her own.
Growing up in Chicago, Green began to sing in clubs in the mid-30s. By the end of the decade she was appearing regularly at some of the city’s best-known nightspots, and was recording with artists such as ‘Big’ Bill Broonzy, who wrote several songs for her, including ‘Country Boy Blues’ and ‘My Mellow Man’. Green composed some well-known songs herself, among them ‘Romance In The Dark’, later covered by Mary Ann McCall, Jeri Southern and Billie Holiday. In the early 40s she toured with Tiny Bradshaw and Luis Russell but never really broke away from the black theatre circuit and those areas of the record business that catered specifically for black audiences. The limitations this placed upon her career were severe, even in the case of one of Green’s most popular recordings, Joe McCoy’s ‘Why Don’t You Do Right?’. The record was heard by Peggy Lee, who was then with Benny Goodman And His Orchestra. Their cover version was an enormous hit, thus further shading Green’s fortunes. Although signed by Atlantic Records in 1951, she was in poor health and died in 1954.
Lil Green 1919 1954 
Lucille Nelson Hegamin (November 29, 1894 – March 1, 1970) was an American singer and entertainer, and a pioneer African American blues recording artist.
Hegamin was born as Lucille Nelson in Macon, Georgia. From an early age she sang in local church choirs. By the age of 15 she was touring the US South with the Leonard Harper Minstrel Stock Company. In 1914 she settled in Chicago, Illinois, where, often billed as “The Georgia Peach”, she worked with Tony Jackson and Jelly Roll Morton before marrying pianist Bill Hegamin. She later told a biographer: “I was a cabaret artist in those days, and never had to play theatres, and I sang everything from blues to popular songs, in a jazz style. I think I can say without bragging that I made the “St. Louis Blues” popular in Chicago; this was one of my feature numbers.” Lucille Hegamin’s stylistic influences included Annette Hanshaw and Ruth Etting.
The Hegamin’s moved to Los Angeles, California in 1918, then to New York City the following year. Bill Hegamin led his wife’s accompanying band, called the Blue Flame Syncopators; Jimmy Wade was a member of this ensemble.
In November 1920 Lucille Hegamin became the second African American blues singer to record, after Mamie Smith. Hegamin made a series of recordings for the Arto record label through 1922, then a few sides for Black Swan, Lincoln, Paramount and Columbia. From 1922 through late 1926 she recorded for Cameo Records; from this association she was billed as “The Cameo Girl”. Like Mamie Smith, Hegamin sang in a lighter, more pop-tune influenced style than the rougher rural-style blues singers such as Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith who became more popular a few years later. Two of her earliest recordings, The Jazz Me Blues and Arkansas Blues became classic tunes.
On January 20, 1922, she competed in a blues singing contest against Daisy Martin, Alice Leslie Carter and Trixie Smith at the Fifteenth Infantry’s First Band Concert and Dance in New York City. Hegamin placed second to Smith in the contest, which was held at the Manhattan Casino.
In 1926 Lucille Hegamin performed in Clarence Williams’ Review at the Lincoln Theater in New York, then in various reviews in New York and Atlantic City, New Jersey through 1934. In 1929 she appeared on the radio show “Negro Achievement Hour” on WABC, New York. In 1932 she recorded for Okeh Records.
About 1934 she retired from music as a profession, and worked as a nurse. She came out of retirement to make more records in 1961 and 1962.
Lucille Hegamin died in Harlem Hospital in New York on March 1, 1970, and was interred in the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn, New York.
Lucille Nelson Hegamin 1894 1970
Alberta Hunter (April 1, 1895 – October 17, 1984) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and nurse. Her career had started back in the early 1920s, and from there on, she became a successful jazz and blues recording artist, being critically acclaimed to the ranks of Ethel Waters and Bessie Smith. In the 1950s, she retired from performing and entered the medical field, only to successfully resume her singing career in her 1980s.
Alberta Hunter 1895 1984
Papa Charlie Jackson (c. 1885 – 1938) was an early American bluesman and songster. He played a hybrid banjo guitar and ukulele, his recording career beginning in 1924. Much of his life remains a mystery, but it is probable that he was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and died in Chicago, Illinois in 1938.
Papa Charlie Jackson c.1890 1938
Edith North Johnson (January 2, 1903 – February 28, 1988) was an American classic female blues singer, pianist and songwriter. Her most noted tracks were "Honey Dripper Blues", "Can't Make Another Day" and "Eight Hour Woman". She wrote another of her songs, "Nickel's Worth of Liver Blues".
Born Edith North, in 1928 she married a local record producer, Jesse Johnson She originally worked at her husband's Deluxe Music Store as a sales person. Although not a professional singer, between 1928 and 1929 Johnson recorded eighteen sides. She started on QRS Records in 1928, later switching to Paramount. Her output tally included those from a recording session in Grafton, Wisconsin, for the Paramount label with Charley Patton. Oddly, it is now reckoned that Patton did not play on any of her recordings.
During World War II, Johnson managed a taxicab operation in St. Louis, as well as later running Johnson's Deluxe Cafė after her husband's death in 1946. By 1961, she had returned to recording when Samuel Charters tracked her down. She was accompanied by Henry Brown on Charters' set entitled, The Blues in St. Louis. It was released by Folkways.
Using pseudonyms such as Hattie North (on Vocalion) and Maybelle Allen, Johnson also earlier waxed additional tracks for other small labels. Under the Hattie North name, she recorded "Lovin' That Man Blues" with Count Basie.
Her recording of "Honey Dripper Blues" was the inspiration for the nickname used by Roosevelt Sykes. In her later life, Johnson spent time undertaking social work in her hometown.
Johnson died in St. Louis in February 1988, at the age of 85.
Edith North Johnson 1903 1988
James "Stump" Johnson (January 17, 1902 – December 5, 1969) was an American blues pianist and singer from St. Louis.
James "Stump" Johnson was the brother of Jesse Johnson, "a prominent black business man," who around 1909 had moved the family from Clarksville, Tennessee, to St. Louis, where he ran a music store and was a promoter. James, a self-taught piano player, he made a career playing the city's brothels. He had an instant hit with the "whorehouse tune" "The Duck's Yas-Yas-Yas," "a popular St. Louis party song." The song's title is explained by quoting the lyrics more fully: "Shake your shoulders, shake 'em fast, if you can't shake your shoulders, shake your yas-yas-yas."
He made a number of other recordings (some mildly pornographic) under various pseudonyms. One of the more obscene tunes was a version of "Steady Grinding'," true to the original of the song, which he recorded with Dorothea Trowbridge on August 2, 1933.
James "Stump" Johnson 1902 1969 
Well that’s it for Part IIa: Early Urban Blues; I hope you found this installment of the series informative and entertaining. I’m searching for some additional photos and videos that I can include in upcoming articles that I hope will catch your eye and get you more involved with the spirit of the times that these artist’s were living in. Wish me luck in my search!
Until the next installment of this series is published ~ ~ ~
Musician By Night . . .
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