Sippie Wallace (born Beulah Belle Thomas; November 1, 1898 – November 1, 1986) was an American blues singer, pianist, and songwriter. She began her career in tent shows and earned the nickname "The Texas Nightingale." Between 1923 and 1927, she recorded more than 40 songs for Okeh Records. Many of these songs were written by her or her brothers, George and Hersal Thomas. Musicians who played with her included Louis Armstrong, Johnny Dodds, Sidney Bechet, King Oliver, and Clarence Williams. Wallace was one of the top female blues singers of her time, joining other famous artists like Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, Alberta Hunter, and Bessie Smith.

In the 1930s, she left show business to work as a church organist, singer, and choir director in Detroit. She performed secular music only occasionally until the 1960s, when she returned to performing. Wallace was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1982 and was added to the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.

Early life

Wallace was born in the Delta lowlands of Jefferson County, Arkansas, as one of 13 children in her family. She was part of a musical family: her brother George Washington Thomas became a well-known pianist, bandleader, composer, and music publisher; her brother Hersal Thomas was a pianist and composer; her niece Hociel Thomas (George’s daughter) was also a pianist and composer.

As a child, her family moved to Houston, Texas. During her youth, she sang and played the piano at Shiloh Baptist Church, where her father served as a deacon. However, in the evenings, she and her siblings left secretly to attend tent shows. By the time she was in her mid-teens, she and her siblings were performing in these shows. While performing in various Texas shows, she gained a loyal audience as a lively blues singer.

In 1915, Wallace moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, with Hersal. Two years later, she married Matt Wallace and adopted his surname.

Career

Wallace moved to Chicago in 1923 and joined the city's busy jazz scene. Her growing reputation helped her get a recording contract with Okeh Records in 1923. Her first songs recorded were "Shorty George" and "Up the Country Blues." She wrote "Shorty George" with her brother George. These songs sold well and made her a famous blues singer in the early 1920s. Other successful recordings followed, including "Special Delivery Blues" (with Louis Armstrong), "Bedroom Blues" (written by George and Hersal Thomas), and "I'm a Mighty Tight Woman." Hersal Thomas died of food poisoning in 1926, at age 19.

Wallace moved to Detroit in 1929. Matt Wallace died in 1936, and George Thomas Washington died on March 6, 1937.

For about 40 years, Wallace sang and played the organ at the Leland Baptist Church in Detroit. Mercury Records re-released "Bedroom Blues" in 1945. She did little in the blues until she started a comeback in 1966, after her longtime friend Victoria Spivey encouraged her to leave retirement. Wallace then toured on the folk and blues festival circuit.

In 1966, Wallace recorded an album called Women Be Wise in Copenhagen, Denmark, with Roosevelt Sykes and Little Brother Montgomery playing piano. She also recorded another album in 1966 called Sings the Blues, on which she played piano on the title song, and Sykes or Montgomery played piano on other tracks. Both albums include her signature song, "Women Be Wise." These recordings inspired musician Bonnie Raitt to sing and play the blues in the late 1960s. Raitt recorded versions of "Women Be Wise" and "Mighty Tight Woman" on her self-titled debut album in 1971. Wallace toured and recorded with Raitt in the 1970s and 1980s and continued to perform on her own. The duo performed "Woman Be Wise" on Late Night with David Letterman on April 27, 1982, with Dr. John playing piano, in support of her album Sippie.

Wallace sang on Louis Armstrong's album Louis Armstrong and the Blues Singers (1966), performing songs like "A Jealous Woman Like Me," "Special Delivery Blues," "Jack o'Diamond Blues," "The Mail Train Blues," and "I Feel Good." She and Spivey recorded an album of blues standards, Sippie Wallace and Victoria Spivey, released in 1970 by Spivey's label, Spivey Records. In 1981, Wallace recorded the album Sippie for Atlantic Records, which earned her a 1983 Grammy nomination and won the 1982 W. C. Handy Award for Best Blues Album of the Year. Her backup group was pianist James Dapogny's Chicago Jazz Band, which included Paul Klinger on cornet, Bob Smith on trombone, and Russ Whitman and Peter Ferran on reeds.

Wallace performed at the Newport Folk Festival in 1966 and 1967, toured Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival in 1966, performed at the Chicago Blues Festival in 1967 and the Ann Arbor Blues Festival in 1972, and appeared at Lincoln Center in New York in 1977. She appeared in the 1982 documentary Jammin' with the Blues Greats. She shared the stage with B.B. King at the Montreaux Jazz Festival on July 22, 1982, in a performance that was filmed and later broadcast.

With German boogie-woogie pianist Axel Zwingenberger, she recorded a studio album, Axel Zwingenberger and the Friends of Boogie Woogie, Vol. 1: Sippie Wallace, in 1983 (released in 1984), which included many of her own songs and classic blues tracks. In 1984, she traveled to Germany to tour with Zwingenberger, where they also recorded her only complete live album, An Evening with Sippie Wallace, for Vagabond Records.

Death

In March 1986, after performing at the Burghausen Jazz Festival in Germany, Wallace experienced a serious stroke and was taken to the hospital. She returned to the United States and passed away on her 88th birthday at Sinai Hospital in Detroit. Wallace is buried at Trinity Cemetery in Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan.

Documentary

In 1986, Rhapsody Films and producer Roberta Grossman created the documentary Sippie Wallace: Blues Singer and Song Writer. The film includes concert footage, interviews, photographs, and rare historic recordings of Wallace.