The No.1 website for musicians
Mamie Smith
Ma Rainey
Bessie Smith
Ida Goodson
Ethel Waters
Alberta Hunter
Lizzie 'Memphis Minnie' Douglas
Victoria Spivey
Ida Cox
Blue Lu Barker
Lizzie Miles
Gladys Bentley
Billie Holiday
Rosa Henderson
Sara Martin
Bertha 'Chippie' Hill
Lucille Hegamin
Eva Taylor
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Lucille Bogan
Ruth Brown
Beverly 'Guitar' Watkins
Koko Taylor
Bonnie Raitt
Rory Block
© Bettmann/CORBIS
Civil rights pioneer Eva Taylor pictured here with a band featuring jazzer/reporter Dick Sudhalter on cornet (right)
Known as ‘The Dixie Nightingale’ Eva Taylor was a blues and jazz singer. Born Irene Joy Gibbons in St Louis, Missouri in 1895, Eva began her career as a performer at the age of three and had toured a fair part of the world before she hit her teens.
Eva recorded her first blues record for the black owned Black Swan Records in 1922. Fellow blues artists Alberta Hunter, Lucille Hegamin and Ethel Waters would also record for the label. Eva’s nightingale tag was spot on. Her attractive warbling vocal style made her a hit with record buyers of the day.
Her performance on the Ragtime-style Candy Lips backed by her husband, pianist Clarence Williams, recorded in 1926 is typical of her crystal clear delivery. Eva knocked music on the head in the 40s but began touring again in the 60s and 70s following her husband’s death. She died in 1977.
