Clara Smith

Clara Smith (c. 1894 – February 2, 1935)^[1] was an African America classic female blues singer. She was billed as the "Queen of the Moaners",^[1] even though she had a lighter and sweeter voice than many of her contemporaries. She was not related to vocalists Bessie Smith or Mamie Smith.

Career

Smith was born in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. In her youth she worked on African American theater circuits and tent shows and in vaudeville. By the late 1910s she was appearing as a headliner at the Lyric Theater in New Orleans, Louisiana and on the T.O.B.A. circuit.

In 1923 she settled in New York, appearing at cabarets and speakeasies there; that same year she made the first of her commercially successful series of gramophone recordings for Columbia Records, for which she recorded 122 songs, working with many other musicians such as Fletcher Henderson and Louis Armstrong.^[2] In 1925, she duetted with Bessie Smith to record two songs, "My Man Blues", and "Far Away Blues" (Columbia 14098-D), recorded on September 1, that year. In 1927, she recorded Tom Delaney's "Troublesome Blues".^[3]

In 1933 she moved to Detroit, Michigan, and worked at theaters in revues there until her hospitalization in early 1935 for heart disease, of which she died.^[4]

See also

• List of blues musicians
• Classic female blues
• List of Classic female blues singers
• List of vaudeville performers: L-Z

References

External links

• Gravemarker at Deadbluesguys website
• Discography at Redhotjazz website