Victoria Spivey and the Chicago Four - "Detroit Moan" (1936)

Victoria Spivey - Detroit Moan (1936)

Posted by edmundusrex
October 21, 2008

Video Summary:
"Victoria Spivey (1908 - 1976) got her start in music at age twelve when she began playing piano in a movie theatre in Houston, Texas. From there she expanded her musical career to playing in saloons and whorehouses. She was was a big fan of the Blues singer Ida Cox and modeled her own career after Cox's. In 1926 at the the age of twenty she travelled to St. Louis where Okeh records was on a field trip looking for new acts to record.

In 1929 she played a small role in King Vidor's early film musical "Hallelujah". As the Blues craze and the record industry in general hit the skids in the early 1930s, Spivey somehow managed to keep recording and performing unlike almost all of the other Classic Blues singers. She expanded into playing in vaudeville musical revues, including the acclaimed Hellzapoppin' Revue in New York City and recorded and toured with Louis Armstrong and his Orchestra. Spivey was constantly working, playing countless one-night stands throughout the 1930s and 1940s, but by the l950s, Spivey had left show business, but continued singing in the church choir in her home in Brooklyn.

Victoria returned to show business in 1962 when she formed her own record company, Spivey Records. Her first record on the label featured Bob Dylan as an accompanist. So, Spivey's career began again in the early 1960s; she began performing in folk and blues festivals and in nightclubs in and around New York City and continued to record for the rest of her life."

Victoria Spivey and the Chicago Four - Detroit Moan (1936)