Revella Eudosia Hughes (July 27, 1895 – October 24, 1987) was an American

singer Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

musician A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wri ...

and recording artist. She was one of the best known and most successful

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 ...

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...

s of the first half of the 20th century.

Early life

Hughes was born in

Huntington, West Virginia Huntington is a city in Cabell and Wayne counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is the county seat of Cabell County, and the largest city in the Huntington–Ashland metropolitan area, sometimes referred to as the Tri-State Area. A h ...

, United States. Her parents were George and Anna B. Page Hughes. Her musical education began at the age of five with piano and singing lessons. She earned a diploma from

Hartshorn Memorial College Hartshorn Memorial College was a school for African-American women in Richmond, Virginia, from 1883–1932, when it merged into Virginia Union University. History Hartshorn Memorial College was created in Richmond, Virginia, in 1883 as a colleg ...

in 1909 and she later learned the

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

while attending Douglass High School from where she graduated in 1915. She received a Bachelor of Music degree from

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commissi ...

in 1917.

Career

Hughes began her professional career 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 ...

in 1920, where she appeared several

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

shows featuring

Paul Robeson Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his p ...

Marian Anderson Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897April 8, 1993) was an American contralto. She performed a wide range of music, from opera to Spiritual (music), spirituals. Anderson performed with renowned orchestras in major concert and recital venues throu ...

and

Roland Hayes Roland Wiltse Hayes (June 3, 1887 – January 1, 1977) was an American lyric tenor and composer. Critics lauded his abilities and linguistic skills demonstrated with songs in French, German, and Italian. Hayes's predecessors as well-known Af ...

. In 1923, she was made choral director for the Broadway revue ''

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 ...

''. During the 1920s she appeared on radio and on stage, working on the

B.F. Keith Benjamin Franklin Keith (January 26, 1846 – March 26, 1914) was an American vaudeville theater owner, highly influential in the evolution of variety theater into vaudeville. Biography Early years Keith was born in Hillsborough, New Hamp ...

circuit in her home town of Huntington, and at the Regal Theater in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. After a substantial career as a soprano, Hughes began composing and arranging on the

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...

, creating a live-performance compilation she titled "An Informal Hour of Music." In 1953, Hughes toured Europe and the Middle East doing U.S.O. shows, where she played the organ and was musical arranger for Gypsy Markoff. After retiring in 1955, Hughes was brought back to the spotlight for a round of performances connected with the Universal Jazz Coalition festival in 1980.

Personal life

While at Howard, Hughes met Layton Wheaton, son of lawyer John Francis Wheaton, who became a dentist. They were married in 1920 and divorced in 1923. In 1932, she had returned to Huntington to take care of her widowed mother. Her mother's death led her to stop singing for a while, which brought about her extensive work with the Hammond organ. She died in New York in 1987 at the age of 91.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Revella 1895 births 1987 deaths 20th-century American singers 20th-century American women singers 20th-century African-American women singers American sopranos Howard University alumni Musicians from Huntington, West Virginia