Ida M. Cox (originally named Prather; born on February 26, 1888 or 1896, and died on November 10, 1967) was an American singer and vaudeville performer. She was most famous for her blues performances and recordings. She was known as "The Uncrowned Queen of the Blues."

Childhood and early career

Cox was born as Ida M. Prather, the daughter of Lamax and Susie (née Knight) Prather in Toccoa, then Habersham County, Georgia. She grew up in Cedartown, Polk County, Georgia. Many sources say she was born on February 26, 1896, but researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc believe she may have been born in 1888. They also found other evidence suggesting her birth year could be 1894. Her family lived and worked near the Riverside Plantation, the private home of the wealthy Prather family. She faced a future with limited opportunities for education and work.

Cox joined a local African Methodist Choir at a young age and became interested in gospel music and performing. At 14, she left home to tour with White and Clark's Black & Tan Minstrels. She began her stage career by playing the role of Topsy, a character often performed in vaudeville shows of that time, usually in blackface. Her early work included performances with other African-American traveling minstrel groups on the Theater Owners Booking Association vaudeville circuit, such as the Florida Orange Blossom Minstrels, the Silas Green Show, and the Rabbit Foot Minstrels.

The Rabbit Foot Minstrels, organized by F. S. Wolcott and based in Port Gibson, Mississippi after 1918, were important for Cox's career and for helping launch the careers of her idols, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. Known as the Foots, the group gave Cox a chance to grow as a performer. However, life on the vaudeville circuit was difficult for everyone involved. Paul Oliver wrote in The Story of the Blues, "The 'Foots' traveled in two cars and used an 80' x 110' tent, which workers raised while a brass band marched through towns to advertise the show. The stage was made of boards on a folding frame, and Coleman lanterns—gasoline mantle lamps—acted as footlights. There were no microphones; weaker singers used megaphones, but most featured women blues singers avoided them." When she was not singing, Cox performed as a clever comedian in vaudeville shows, gaining experience and improving her stage presence.

Personal life

By 1908 (some sources say 1916), she married Adler Cox, a trumpeter who performed with the Florida Orange Blossom Minstrels, a group she briefly toured with. Their marriage ended when he died during World War I. She continued to use his last name for the rest of her career. In the early 1920s, she married Eugene Williams and had a daughter named Helen. Little is known about this marriage, which later ended in divorce.

In 1927, she married Jesse "Tiny" Crump, a blues pianist who worked on the Theater Owners Booking Association vaudeville circuit. Crump helped her write songs, such as "Gypsy Glass Blues" and "Death Letter Blues," played piano and organ on her recordings, and managed her career as it grew.

Gaining popularity

By 1915, Cox had moved from the "pickaninny" roles she performed early in her minstrel career to singing blues songs almost all the time. In 1920, she left the vaudeville shows for a short time to perform as a main attraction at the 81 Theatre in Atlanta with pianist Jelly Roll Morton. Her strong stage presence and clear, emotional singing helped her gain recognition, and by the early 1920s, she was considered one of the best solo performers on the Theater Owners Booking Association tour. In March 1922, Cox performed at the Beale Street Palace in Memphis, Tennessee. Her performance was broadcast on radio station WMC and received good reviews, which helped her reach a larger audience.

Recording career

After Mamie Smith's 1920 recording of "Crazy Blues" became popular, record companies realized there was a need for recordings of race music. The classic female blues era started and continued through the 1920s. As Cox's popularity in the South grew quickly, talent scouts noticed her and she signed a contract with Paramount Records, the same company where her idol, Ma Rainey, recorded. Paramount gave her the nickname "The Uncrowned Queen of Blues." From September 1923 to October 1929, she recorded 78 songs for Paramount. For her many recording sessions, Paramount provided Cox with excellent supporting musicians, including pianist Lovie Austin and her band, the Blues Serenaders, which included Jimmy O'Bryant (clarinet) and Tommy Ladnier (cornet). She also recorded two sides backed by the Pruitt Twins. During this time, Cox recorded songs for other companies like Broadway and Silvertone, using different names such as Kate Lewis, Velma Bradley, Julia Powers, and Jane Smith.

Raisin' Cain

In 1929, Cox and Crump created their tent show revue, Raisin' Cain, named after the biblical story of Cain and Abel and the common saying that came from it. Cox performed as the main act, and Crump helped with music and managed the show. From the late 1920s into the early 1930s, Raisin' Cain traveled to Black theaters in the Southeast and across Texas, with performances in Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Chicago. The show included sixteen chorus girls, comedians, and backup singers. Raisin' Cain became so popular that in 1929, it was the first show linked to the Theater Owners Booking Association circuit to perform at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. Cox, sometimes called "Sepia Mae West," led touring productions into the 1930s. This was the highest point of her career.

By the end of the 1930s, the economic challenges of the Great Depression and the declining popularity of female blues singers made it hard to keep the show running, leading to frequent job losses and breaks in the tour schedule. Cox continued performing throughout the 1930s. In 1935, she and Crump reorganized Raisin' Cain, which had been renamed Darktown Scandals, and continued touring the South and Midwest until 1939. In the early 1930s, drummer Earl Palmer began his career as a tap dancer in Cox's Darktown Scandals revue.

Later career and comeback

In 1939, Ida Cox was invited to perform at the Carnegie Hall concert series From Spirituals to Swing, organized by John Hammond. During this event, she sang the song "Fore Day Creep" with musicians James P. Johnson (piano), Lester Young (tenor saxophone), Buck Clayton (trumpet), and Dicky Wells (trombone). This performance helped her career grow after the Great Depression. In 1939, she recorded for Vocalion and in 1940 for Okeh, working with musicians such as Charlie Christian, Hot Lips Page, Red Allen, J. C. Higginbotham, and Lionel Hampton. She continued performing until 1945, when she had to retire after suffering a serious stroke during a nightclub performance in Buffalo, New York. She moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, and lived with her daughter, Helen Goode, while being active in her church.

One day each week, I stand at my front door. One day each week, I stand at my front door. The police could not move me until the mailman arrived. It was a small white paper from Uncle Sam addressed to me. It was a small white paper from Uncle Sam addressed to me. It meant one more week, one more week of good times. After four long years, Uncle Sam put me on the shelf. After four long years, Uncle Sam put me on the shelf. That little pink slip means you must go for yourself. Ida Cox, "Pink Slip Blues," 1940

Cox was not active in music until 1959, when John Hammond placed an ad in Variety magazine to find her. After locating her, Hammond and record producer Chris Albertson encouraged her to record again. In 1961, 15 years after her last recordings, she made the album Blues for Rampart Street for Riverside Records. She performed with musicians Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, Sammy Price, Milt Hinton, and Jo Jones. The album included songs she had previously performed, such as "Wild Women Don't Have the Blues," which was later covered by singers Nancy Harrow and Barbara Dane. A New York Times review noted that at age 65, Cox had lost some vocal range and accuracy but still delivered expressive and charismatic performances.

Cox called the album her "final statement." After recording it, she returned to Knoxville to live with her daughter. She had another stroke in 1965. In 1967, she entered East Tennessee Baptist Hospital, where she died of cancer on November 10, 1967.

Singing style

Cox's style focused more on vaudeville than blues, similar to her early career. Her voice was not as strong or rough as those of famous singers like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey. However, she held her audiences in awe with her passionate and energetic performances. During the peak of the classic female blues era, many talented blues singers competed, and Cox's singing was only one part of her act. As her career grew, she took on and showed the title given to her, "The Uncrowned Queen of the Blues." Onstage, she displayed a glamorous and confident presence that attracted fans. She also used a stylish wardrobe, including a tiara, cape, and rhinestone wand, to enhance her stage appearance.

Independent spirit

The independent spirit that shaped Cox's life and career was a quality shared by many early blues musicians, such as Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Sippie Wallace, and Victoria Spivey. Because she began working in the minstrel circuits as a teenager, Cox learned to be independent early in life. She showed she was a capable and smart businessperson by organizing and managing her own group, Raisin' Cain, which lasted for ten years. This was unusual because few Black women owned or ran their own businesses in the 1920s and 1930s. Cox was also one of the few female blues singers of her time who wrote her own songs.

In her songs, Cox used powerful and direct lyrics to describe the difficult life experiences of poor and working-class African Americans in the early 1900s. Her music often talked about topics like women's independence, freedom in relationships, and the challenges faced by Black people in society, all from a woman's point of view. One of Cox's most famous songs, "Wild Women Don't Have the Blues," is still remembered today as one of the first songs to celebrate women's strength and independence:

I've got a disposition and a way of my own,
When my man starts to kicking I let him find a new home,
I get full of good liquor, walk the street all night,
Go home and put my man out if he don't act right.
Wild women don't worry,
Wild women don't have the blues.

Discography

• 1923–00 – Complete Recorded Works, Volume 1 (Document Records, 1997) Paramount recordings
• 1924–25 – Complete Recorded Works, Volume 2 (Document Records, 2000) Paramount recordings
• 1925–27 – Complete Recorded Works, Volume 3 (Document Records, 2000) Paramount recordings
• 1927–38 – Complete Recorded Works, Volume 4 (Document Records, 2000) Paramount recordings
• 1939–40 – Complete Recorded Works, Volume 5 (Document Records, 2000) Paramount recordings
• 1960 – Blues for Rampart Street (Riverside, 1961) with the Coleman Hawkins Quintet
• 1923–38 The Essential (2xCD) (Classic Blues, 2001) a collection of tracks from the Document albums