Born: Circa 1892, United States
Died: 15 November 1936
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
American vaudeville and blues singer Esther Bigeou was popular in the 1920s, billed as “The Girl with the Million Dollar Smile”
Bigeou started touring in 1913 with her future husband, performer and playwright Irvin C. Miller. She performed in his revue Broadway Rastus in 1917, touring Philadelphia, New York City and Baltimore, and toured the Theater Owners Booking Association vaudeville circuit with the Billy King Company in 1923. From 1923 to 1925 and 1927 to 1930, she toured in the American South, Midwest, and Northeast.
The blues writer Chris Smith describes Bigeou as “a singer at the pop end of African-American entertainment” who “seems to have retired, aged only 35, to settle in New Orleans, where reports indicate that she died circa 1936”.
All Bigeou’s recordings were reissued in 1996 by Document Records as Esther Bigeou: Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order (1921–1923). Her 1921 and 1923 recordings for Okeh Records include:
“The Memphis Blues”
“The St. Louis Blues”
“Stingaree Blues (A Down Home Blues)”
“Nervous Blues”
“If That’s What You Want Here It Is”
“Agrravatin’ Papa (Don’t You Try To Two-Time Me)
“Four O’Clock Blues”
“I’m Through With You (As I Can Be)”
“Beale Street Mama”
“Outside Of That, He’s All Right With Me”
“The Gulf Coast Blues”
“Beale Street Blues”
“The Hesitating Blues”
“That Twa-Twa Tune”
“Panama Limited Blues”
“You Ain’t Treatin’ Me Right”
“West Indies Blues”