Victoria Regina Spivey (October 15, 1906 – October 3, 1976),
sometimes known as Queen Victoria, was an American
blues 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 withou ...
and
songwriter
A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music ...
. During a recording career that spanned 40 years, from 1926 to the mid-1960s, she worked with
Louis Armstrong,
King Oliver
Joseph Nathan "King" Oliver (December 19, 1881 – April 8/10, 1938) was an American jazz cornet player and bandleader. He was particularly recognized for his playing style and his pioneering use of mutes in jazz. Also a notable composer, he wr ...
,
Clarence Williams,
Luis Russell
Luis Russell (August 5, 1902 – December 11, 1963) was a pioneering Panamanian jazz pianist, orchestra leader, composer, and arranger.
Career
Luis Carl Russell was born on Careening Cay, near Bocas del Toro, Panama, in a family of African-Car ...
,
Lonnie Johnson, and
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
.
She also performed in vaudeville and clubs, sometimes with her sister Addie "Sweet Peas" (or "Sweet Pease") Spivey (August 22, 1910 – 1943),
also known as the Za Zu Girl. Among her compositions are "Black Snake Blues" (1926), "Dope Head Blues" (1927), and "Organ Grinder Blues" (1928).
Life and career
Born in
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
,
she was the daughter of Grant and Addie (Smith) Spivey. Her father was a part-time musician and a
flagman Flagman may refer to:
* Flagman (rail), an employee of the railroad who is assigned to protect anyone performing work on a railroad right of way
* ''Flagman'', a Nintendo ''Game & Watch'' game
* Traffic guard
Traffic guards, also known as t ...
for the railroad; her mother was a
nurse
Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health c ...
. She had three sisters, all three of whom also sang professionally: Leona, Elton "Za Zu", and Addie "Sweet Peas" (or "Sweet Pease") Spivey (August 22, 1910 – 1943),
who recorded for several major
record label
A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...
s between 1929 and 1937, and Elton Island Spivey Harris (1900–1971).
She married four times; her husbands included Ruben Floyd, Billy Adams, and
Len Kunstadt, with whom she co-founded
Spivey Records
Spivey Records was a specialist blues record label founded by blues singer Victoria Spivey and jazz historian Len Kunstadt in 1961. Spivey Records released a series of blues and jazz albums between 1961 and 1985.
History of Spivey Records
The la ...
in 1961.
Spivey's first professional experience was in a family string band led by her father in Houston. After he died, the seven-year-old Victoria played on her own at local parties. In 1918, she was hired to accompany films at the Lincoln Theater in
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
. As a teenager, she worked in local bars,
nightclub
A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music.
Nightclubs gener ...
s, and buffet flats, mostly alone, but occasionally with singer-guitarists, including
Blind Lemon Jefferson.
In 1926 she moved to
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
, where she was signed by
Okeh Records. Her first
recording
A record, recording or records may refer to:
An item or collection of data Computing
* Record (computer science), a data structure
** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity
** Boot sector or boot record, r ...
, "Black Snake Blues" (1926),
sold well, and her association with the
label
A label (as distinct from signage) is a piece of paper, plastic film, cloth, metal, or other material affixed to a container or product, on which is written or printed information or symbols about the product or item. Information printed ...
continued. She recorded numerous sides for Okeh in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
until 1929, when she switched to the
Victor label. Between 1931 and 1937, more recordings followed for
Vocalion Records
Vocalion Records is an American record company and label.
History
The label was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Company, a maker of pianos and organs, as Aeolian-Vocalion; the company also sold phonographs under the Vocalion name. "Aeolian" was ...
and
Decca Records,
and, working out of New York, she maintained an active performance schedule. Her recorded accompanists included
King Oliver
Joseph Nathan "King" Oliver (December 19, 1881 – April 8/10, 1938) was an American jazz cornet player and bandleader. He was particularly recognized for his playing style and his pioneering use of mutes in jazz. Also a notable composer, he wr ...
,
Charles Avery,
Louis Armstrong,
Lonnie Johnson, and
Red Allen
Henry James "Red" Allen, Jr. (January 7, 1908 – April 17, 1967) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist whose playing has been claimed by Joachim-Ernst Berendt and others as the first to fully incorporate the innovations of Louis Armst ...
.
The
Depression did not put an end to Spivey's musical career. She found a new outlet for her talent in 1929, when the
film director King Vidor
King Wallis Vidor (; February 8, 1894 – November 1, 1982) was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose 67-year film-making career successfully spanned the silent and sound eras. His works are distinguished by a vivid, ...
cast her to play Missy Rose in his first sound
film, ''
Hallelujah!''. Through the 1930s and 1940s Spivey continued to work in
musical films and
stage show
A theatrical production is any work of theatre, such as a staged play, musical, comedy or drama produced from a written book or script. Theatrical productions also extend to other performance designations such as Dramatic and Nondramatic theatre, a ...
s, including the hit musical ''
Hellzapoppin'' (1938), often with her husband, the
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 ...
dancer Billy Adams.
In 1951, Spivey retired from show business to play the
pipe organ and lead a church choir, but she returned to
secular music in 1961, when she was reunited with an old singing partner, Lonnie Johnson, to appear on four tracks on his
Prestige Bluesville album ''Idle Hours''. The
folk music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
revival of the 1960s gave her further opportunities to make a comeback. She recorded again for Prestige Bluesville, sharing an album, ''Songs We Taught Your Mother'', with fellow veterans
Alberta Hunter and
Lucille Hegamin
Lucille Nelson Hegamin (November 29, 1894 – March 1, 1970) was an American singer and entertainer and an early African-American blues recording artist.
Life and career
Lucille Nelson was born in Macon, Georgia, the daughter of John and Minni ...
, and began making personal appearances at festivals and clubs, including the 1963 European tour of the
American Folk Blues Festival
The American Folk Blues Festival was a music festival that toured Europe as an annual event for several years beginning in 1962. It introduced audiences in Europe, including the UK, to leading blues performers of the day such as Muddy Waters, Howl ...
.
In 1961, Spivey and the jazz and blues historian
Len Kunstadt launched
Spivey Records
Spivey Records was a specialist blues record label founded by blues singer Victoria Spivey and jazz historian Len Kunstadt in 1961. Spivey Records released a series of blues and jazz albums between 1961 and 1985.
History of Spivey Records
The la ...
, a low-budget label dedicated to blues, jazz, and related music, prolifically recording established artists, including
Sippie Wallace,
Lucille Hegamin
Lucille Nelson Hegamin (November 29, 1894 – March 1, 1970) was an American singer and entertainer and an early African-American blues recording artist.
Life and career
Lucille Nelson was born in Macon, Georgia, the daughter of John and Minni ...
,
Otis Rush,
Otis Spann,
Willie Dixon,
Roosevelt Sykes
Roosevelt Sykes (January 31, 1906July 17, 1983) was an American blues musician, also known as "the Honeydripper".
Career
Sykes was born the son of a musician in Elmar, Arkansas. "Just a little old sawmill town", Sykes said of his birthplace. The ...
,
Big Joe Turner,
Buddy Tate
George Holmes "Buddy" Tate (February 22, 1913 – February 10, 2001) was an American jazz saxophonist and clarinetist.
Biography
Tate was born in Sherman, Texas, United States, and first played the alto saxophone. According to the website All A ...
, and
Hannah Sylvester, and also newer artists, including
Luther Johnson,
Brenda Bell,
Washboard Doc,
Bill Dicey,
Robert Ross,
Sugar Blue
Sugar Blue (born James Joshua "Jimmie" Whiting, December 16, 1949, Harlem, New York City) is an American blues harmonica player. He is probably best known for playing on the Rolling Stones' single " Miss You", and in partnering Louisiana Red.
...
,
Paul Oscher
Paul Allan Oscher (February 26, 1947 – April 18, 2021) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist. Primarily a harmonica player, he was the first permanent white member of Muddy Waters' band.Norman Darwen, "Obituary: Paul ...
,
Danny Russo, and
Larry Johnson.
In March 1962, Spivey and
Big Joe Williams recorded for Spivey Records, with harmonica accompaniment and backup vocals by
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
. The recordings were released on ''Three Kings and the Queen'' (Spivey LP 1004) and ''Kings and the Queen Volume Two'' (Spivey LP 1014). Dylan was listed under his own name on the record covers. A picture of her and Dylan from this period is shown on the back cover of the Dylan album, ''
New Morning
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
''. In 1964, Spivey made her only recording with an all-white band, the
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...
-based Easy Riders Jazz Band, led by the
trombonist
The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...
Big Bill Bissonnette
Big Bill Bissonnette (February 5, 1937 – June 26, 2018) was an American jazz trombonist, drummer, and record producer.
He was a strong advocate of New Orleans jazz as played by veteran African-American musicians. In the 1960s, he led his ow ...
. It was released first on an
LP and later re-released on
compact disc
The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Oc ...
.
In Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, she appeared on French television,
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, but Americans may not have seen these screen appearances until their arrival on
.
Spivey married four times; her husbands included Ruben Floyd, Billy Adams, and Len Kunstadt.
.
(three tracks)
*''Songs We Taught Your Mother'' (Bluesville, 1962) shared album with
(four tracks)
*''Woman Blues!'' (Bluesville, 1962) with Lonnie Johnson
*''A Basket of Blues'' (Spivey, 1962) shared album with
*''Victoria and Her Blues'' (Spivey, 1962)
*''Three Kings and the Queen'' (Spivey, 1964) shared album with
and Lonnie Johnson
*''The Queen and Her Knights'' (Spivey, 1965) shared album with Lonnie Johnson,
* ''Music Down Home: An Introduction to Negro Folk Music, U.S.A.'' (1965)
* ''The Blues Is Life'' (1976)
* ''Classic Piano Blues from Smithsonian Folkways'' (2008)