Victoria Spivey

Blues singer Victoria Spivey began her career in Texas playing to tough crowds in nightclubs and bordellos around the state. Accompanying herself on piano and organ, she sang musically sophisticated songs that contained blunt, often sexually suggestive lyrics in the style of Bessie Smith and Alberta Hunter. She recorded for most of the major blues record companies throughout the 1930s, but had all but left the business by the '50s. Spivey benefited from the blues revival of the '60s, and she started her own record label in the wake of re-kindled interest in the genre. She recorded and performed until her death in 1976.