Josie Miles (c. 1900 – c. 1953–65) was an American

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

and

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

singer. She was one of the classic female blues singers popular in the 1920s. Miles was born in

Summerville, South Carolina Summerville is a town in the U.S. state of South Carolina situated mostly in Dorchester County, with small portions in Berkeley and Charleston counties. It is part of the Charleston-North Charleston-Summerville Metropolitan Statistical Area. Su ...

. Harris, Sheldon (1994). ''Blues Who's Who'' (rev. ed.). New York: Da Capo Press. p. 374. . By the early 1920s she was working in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, where she appeared in Eubie Blake and

Noble Sissle Noble Lee Sissle (July 10, 1889 – December 17, 1975) was an American jazz composer, lyricist, bandleader, singer, and playwright, best known for the Broadway musical ''Shuffle Along'' (1921), and its hit song "I'm Just Wild About Harry". Ea ...

's musical comedy ''

Shuffle Along ''Shuffle Along'' is a musical composed by Eubie Blake, with lyrics by Noble Sissle, and a book written by the comedy duo Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles. One of the most notable all-Black hit Broadway shows, it was a landmark in African-America ...

''. In 1922, Miles made her first recordings for the

Black Swan The black swan (''Cygnus atratus'') is a large waterbird, a species of swan which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. Within Australia, the black swan is nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent upon c ...

Company. She later recorded for the

Gennett Gennett (pronounced "jennett") was an American record company and label in Richmond, Indiana, United States, which flourished in the 1920s. Gennett produced some of the earliest recordings by Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Bix Beiderbecke, and Hoa ...

, Ajax,

Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These invention ...

, and Banner Records labels. In 1923 she toured the

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

theatre circuit with the Black Swan Troubadours, and performed in New York City in

James P. Johnson James Price Johnson (February 1, 1894 – November 17, 1955) was an American pianist and composer. A pioneer of stride piano, he was one of the most important pianists in the early era of recording, and like Jelly Roll Morton, one of the key ...

's revue ''Runnin' Wild'' at the Colonial Theatre. In that same year she also performed on WDT radio in New York City. The blues writer Steve Tracy described Miles as having "a light but forceful delivery that was not low-down but was nevertheless convincing." Her last recordings date from 1925. After the early 1930s, she devoted herself to church activities in

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...

, where she had settled. According to some accounts, Miles died in an automobile accident in the 1950s or 1960s. In 1928, a preacher billed sometimes as Missionary Josephine Miles and sometimes as Evangelist Mary Flowers recorded six sides of fiery sermons for the Gennett label. It is not known if these recordings are attributable to Josie Miles. The blues historians

Paul Oliver Paul Hereford Oliver MBE (25 May 1927 – 15 August 2017) was an English architectural historian and writer on the blues and other forms of African-American music. He was equally distinguished in both fields, although it is likely that aficion ...

and Chris SmithSmith, C. (1995). CD booklet. ''Gospel Classics: Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order. Volume 3 (1924–1942)''. Document Records DODC-5350. believe that the aural evidence does not support this identification.

References

External links

Biography and photograph
at www.Redhotjazz.com Classic female blues singers African-American theatre American blues singers People from Summerville, South Carolina Vaudeville performers Ajax Records artists Gennett Records artists 1900s births 20th-century deaths Year of birth uncertain Year of death uncertain 20th-century African-American women singers {{US-singer-stub