Ida Cox

Infobox musical artist
Name = Ida Cox


Img_capt =
Img_size =
Landscape =
Background = solo_singer
Birth_name = Ida Prather
Alias =
Born = c. 25 February 1896
Died = 10 November 1967
Origin = Toccoa, Habersham County, Georgia, United States
Instrument = Vocalist
Voice_type =
Genre = Jazz, Blues
Occupation =
Years_active =
=
Associated_acts =
URL =
Current_members =
Past_members =
Notable_instruments =

Ida Cox (c. 25 February 1896 – 10 November 1967) was an African American singer and vaudeville performer, best known for her blues performances and recordings.

Cox was born in February, 1896 as Ida Prather in Toccoa, Habersham County, Georgia (Toccoa was in Habersham County, not yet Stephens County at the time), the daughter of Lamax and Susie (Knight) Prather, and grew up in Cedartown, Georgia, singing in the local African Methodist Church choir. She left home to tour with traveling minstrel shows, often appearing in blackface into the 1910s; she married fellow minstrel performer Adler Cox.

By 1920, she was appearing as a headline act at the 81 Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia; another headliner at that time was Jelly Roll Morton.Barlow, William. "Looking Up At Down": The Emergence of Blues Culture". Temple University Press (1989), pp. 151-53. ISBN 0-87722-583-4.]

After the success of Mamie Smith's pioneering 1920 recording of "Crazy Blues", record labels realized there was a demand for recordings of race music. The classic female blues era had begun, and would extend through the 1920s. From 1923 through to 1929, Cox made numerous recordings for Paramount Records, and headlined touring companies, sometimes billed as the "Sepia Mae West", continuing into the 1930s. [Oliver, Paul. "Ida Cox." in Kernfeld, Barry. ed. "The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd Edition, Vol. 1." London: MacMillan, 2002. p. 525.] During the 1920s, she also managed Ida Cox and Her Raisin' Cain Company, her own vaudeville troupe.

Early in the 1930 "Baby Earl Palmer" broke into big time show business as a tap dancer in Cox's "Darktown Scandals Review." [ Scherman, Tony, foreward by Wynston Marsalis, "Backbeat: The Earl Palmer Story", Smithsonian Institute Press, Washington D.C., 1999 ]

In 1939 she appeared at Café Society Downtown, in New York's Greenwich Village, and participated in the historic Carnegie Hall concert, "From Spirituals to Swing". That year, she also resumed her recording career with a series of sessions for Vocalion Records and, in 1940, Okeh Records, with groups that at various times included guitarist Charlie Christian, trumpeters Hot Lips Page and Henry "Red" Allen, trombonist J. C. Higginbotham, and Lionel Hampton.

She had spent several years in retirement by 1960, when record producer Chris Albertson persuaded her to make one final recording, an album for Riverside. Her accompanying group comprised Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, pianist Sammy Price, bassist Milt Hinton, and drummer Jo Jones. Ms. Cox referred to the album as her "final statement," and, indeed, it was. She returned to live with her daughter in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she died in 1967.

References

External links

* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7129165 Find-A-Grave profile for Ida Cox]