Biography
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Born
1895
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Born In
New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
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Died
1936 (aged 41)
Esther Bigeou (c. 1895 – c. 1936) was an American vaudeville and blues singer. Billed as "The Girl with the Million Dollar Smile", she was one of the classic female blues singers popular in the 1920s.
She was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her extended family featured several musicians; drummer Paul Barbarin was her cousin. In 1917 Esther Bigeou appeared as a singer, dancer, and recitalist in the Broadway Rastus Revue at the Standard Theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Lafayette Theater in New York City, and the Orpheum Theater in Baltimore, Maryland. She recorded for the OKeh label in 1921 and 1923, and toured the TOBA vaudeville circuit with the Billy King Company in 1923. During 1923–1925 and 1927–1930, she toured as a single act throughout the American South, Midwest, and Northeast.
Blues writer Chris Smith says that Esther Bigeou was "a singer at the pop end of African-American entertainment", and that she "seems to have retired, aged only 35, to settle in New Orleans, where reports indicate that she died circa 1936".
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