Lizzie Miles

Lizzie Miles was the stage name of Elizabeth Mary Landreaux (March 31, 1895 – March 17, 1963), a Creole blues singer.

Miles was born in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana, in a dark-skinned Francophone Creole ("Creole of color") family. As a child, she sang in church and performed at parties and dances. She worked with Joe Oliver, Kid Ory, Bunk Johnson, and A.J. Piron from 1909-1911. She then toured the South, performing in theaters, circuses, and with minstrel shows. In 1917 she sang in Chicago with Manuel Manetta, and then, in 1921 with Freddie Keppard, Charlie Elgar, and again with Oliver. She moved to New York and made her first phonograph recordings in 1922. They were blues songs, but she did not like to be referred to as a blues singer since she sang a wide repertoire.

Miles toured Europe in 1924 and 1925 and then returned to New York and worked in clubs from 1926 to 1931. During this time she worked with her half-brother, Herb Morand. Miles recorded as leader of a trio with Oliver, and in a duo with Jelly Roll Morton. She suffered a serious illness and retired from the music industry in the 1930s, not before she recorded "My Man o' War", described by one music journalist as "a composition stuffed with rococo suggestiveness". Despite her illness, Miles appeared in two films in the early 1930s. She began working regularly again in 1935, performing with Paul Barbarin at the Strollers Club in New York. She sang with Fats Waller in 1938 and then worked in Chicago until she left music in 1942.

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