Trixie Smith
| Trixie Smith | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Trixie Muse |
| Born | c.1885–1895 Atlanta, Georgia, United States |
| Died | September 21, 1943 (age 48-58) New York, United States |
| Genres | Blues |
| Occupation(s) | Vocalist, actress |
| Years active | 1920s – 1930s |
| Labels |
Black Swan Paramount Decca |
Trixie Smith (c.1885/1895 – September 21, 1943) was an African-American blues singer, recording artist, vaudeville entertainer, and actress. She made four dozen recordings.
Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Smith came from a middle-class background. Various years are given for her birth including 1885, 1888, and 1895. She attended Selma University, in Alabama, before moving to New York City at the age of twenty around 1915. Soon after, she began working in a number of different cafés and theaters in Harlem and Philadelphia.
She began her career as a vaudeville and minstrel entertainer who performed as a comedian, dancer, actress, and singer in traveling shows. Between 1916 and the early 1920s, she worked in minstrel shows and toured as a featured singer. She performed on Broadway using the name Bessie Lee and recorded for Silvertone. She also worked on the Theater Owners Bookers Association vaudeville circuit before making her first recordings for Black Swan Records in 1922, among which was "My Man Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll)" (1922), written by J. Berni Barbour, of historical interest as the first secular recording to use the phrase rock and roll. Her record inspired various lyrical elaborations, such as "Rock That Thing" by Lil Johnson and "Rock Me Mama" by Ikey Robinson.
Also in 1922, billed as the "southern nightingale," Smith won first place and a silver cup in a blues singing contest in which she sang her own composition, "Trixie's Blues", competing against Alice Leslie Carter, Daisy Martin and Lucille Hegamin, at the Inter-Manhattan Casino in New York, sponsored by the dancer Irene Castle. She is best remembered for "Railroad Blues" (1925), which features one of her most inspired vocal performances on record, and "The World Is Jazz Crazy and So Am I" (1925). Louis Armstrong played the cornet on both songs.
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