Dr. John Collection on Letterman, 1982-2008
with
Bonnie Raitt, Sippie Wallace
Beulah "Sippie" Thomas grew up in Houston, Texas where she sang and played the piano in her father's church.
While still in her early teens she and her younger brother Hersal and older brother George began playing and singing the Blues in tent shows that travelled throughout Texas. In 1915 she moved to New Orleans and lived with her older brother George and got married to Matt Wallace in 1917.
During her stay there she met many of the great Jazz musicians like King Oliver and Louis Armstrong who were friends of her brother George.
During the early 1920s she toured the TOBA vaudeville circuit where she was billed as "The Texas Nightingale". In 1923 she followed her brothers to Chicago and began performing in the cafes and cabarets around town.
In 1923 she recorded her first records for Okeh and went on to record over forty songs for them between 1923 and 1929. Her brother Hersal died of food poisoning in 1926 at age sixteen.
Wallace was unique among the Classic Blues singers in that she wrote a great deal of her own material, often with her brothers supplying the music. The sidemen who played on her recording sessions were always excellent and included the cream of New Orleans Jazz musicians, like King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Clarence Williams, Sidney Bechet and Johnny Dodds among others.
Sippie moved to Detroit in 1929 and left show business in the early 1930s as the Blues craze ran its course. In 1935 and 1936 her aunt Lillie, her husband Matt and her brother George (who was hit by a streetcar) all died .
She found solace in religion and during the next forty years she was a singer and organ player at the Leland Baptist Church in Detroit. She occasionally performed over the years, but did little in the Blues until she launched a comeback in 1966 after her longtime friend and fellow Texan, Victoria Spivey called "Sippie Wallace and Victoria Spivey". Wallace's next album was called "Sippie Wallace Sings the Blues" for the Storyville label in 1966.
Wallace suffered a stroke in 1970 but managed to keep recording and performing.
With the help of Bonnie Raitt she landed a recording deal with Atlantic Records and recorded the album, "Sippie", which featured Raitt, was nominated for a Grammy in 1983 and won a W.C. Handy Award for best blues album in 1984.
