Music
Clara Smith
1894–1935 · classic blues singer
1920s classic-blues star, billed as the Queen of the Moaners, who spent her last years singing in Detroit theater revues and died in the city in 1935.
- Born
Spartanburg County, South Carolina- Died
Detroit, Michigan
aged 40- Also known as
- Queen of the Moaners
- Detroit years
- 1933–1935
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Clara Smith was one of the best-selling blues singers of the 1920s, outsold only by Bessie Smith, with whom she recorded three duets (the two were not related). From 1923 she cut 122 sides for Columbia, working with Fletcher Henderson, Louis Armstrong and Don Redman, and her vaudeville billing as the Queen of the Moaners referred to her slow, mournful delivery. As the Depression gutted the record business, she kept working on the stage. In 1933 she came to Detroit on tour and stayed, appearing in revues at the city's theaters, which then catered to the large Black audience of Paradise Valley and the surrounding neighborhoods. She died of heart disease in Detroit in February 1935, a month before her forty-first birthday, closing out the career of one of the major voices of the classic-blues era.
Highlights
- Recorded 122 sides for Columbia Records from 1923
- Three duets with Bessie Smith, 1923–1925
- Worked with Fletcher Henderson, Louis Armstrong and Don Redman
- Performed in Detroit theater revues from 1933 until her death in 1935