Sippie Wallace

Beulah Thomas was born on November 1, 1898, in Houston, Texas, into a musical family of thirteen children. Singing in Shiloh Baptist Church where her father was a deacon, she began playing piano and singing in Houston tent shows and traveling vaudeville revues as a teenager.

Relocating to Chicago in 1923, she signed with Okeh Records, recording classic blues standards accompanied by legends Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, and Clarence Williams. Between 1923 and 1929, she recorded over 40 sides, becoming one of the most celebrated African American female vocalists of the Jazz Age.

After four decades serving as an organist at the Leland Baptist Church in Detroit, Wallace was rediscovered in the late 1960s by blues manager Ron Harwood. She toured Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival, recorded with Bonnie Raitt (who popularized Wallace's song 'Women Be Wise'), and earned a 1982 Grammy nomination for her comeback album 'Sippie'. She passed away on her 88th birthday, November 1, 1986.