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Revision as of 02:47, 29 November 2018
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (November 2016) |
Billie Goodson Pierce | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Billie Goodson Pierce playing the piano with her husband in the background. | |
| Background information | |
| Born | June 8, 1907 Marianna, Florida |
| Died | September 29, 1974 (aged 67) New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Jazz and blues pianist, singer, dancer |
| Instrument | Piano |
Wilhelmina Goodson, known professionally as Billie Pierce (June 8, 1907 – September 29, 1974), was an American jazz pianist and singer.[1]
Early life
Wilhelmina (Billie) Goodson was born on June 8, 1907 in her mother's hometown of Marianna, Florida, United States,[1] and grew up in Pensacola, Florida. She was one of six piano-playing sisters (including Ida Goodson and Sadie Goodson) whose mother and father (Madison H. Goodson and Sarah Jenkins Goodson) also played the piano.[2] There was a seventh daughter, Maggie, who died young. Billie was the second youngest of the girls; the order of the sisters from oldest to youngest went Mabel (b. 1899), Della (1901), Sadie (1903), Edna (1904), Billie (1907), and Ida (1909).[3]
Goodson was never formally trained to read music. Both of her parents musicians, they played hymns and sang in the choir at the Baptist church where Madison Goodson was a Deacon. According to Billie, she was about two years old when she first started to play the piano.[4]
Though her parents disapproved of ragtime, blues, and jazz, only playing religious music, Billie and her sisters were drawn to it. When Ms. Pierce was about ten years old, she and her sisters would go down to the Belmont Theater to listen to Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, and Bessie Smith when they passed through Pensacola, Florida. In 1922, when Ms. Pierce was almost thirteen, Bessie Smith passed through town again. Bessie's pianist, Clarence Williams, suffered a heart attack and Ms. Pierce subbed in to played piano with Bessie Smith for two weeks at the Belmont Theater.[4]
Career
At the age of 15, Pierce began playing piano professionally. Some accounts claim she toured with Gertrude "Ma" Rainey,[5] however, during this time she was actually accompanying Ida Cox at the Belmont Theater.[6] After her time accompanying Ms. Cox, Billie toured as a singer, dancer, and pianist.[6] At the beginning of the 1920s, Billie would only accompany bands on the Florida leg of their tours. In 1929, she was working in a nine-piece band named the Nighthawks Orchestra in Birmingham, Alabama when she heard that her sister, Sadie, had fallen ill and needed a temporary replacement. Sadie and her husband, Abbey "Chinee" Foster on drums, in Buddy Petit's band on the SS Madison in New Orleans.[7]
In the 1930s, she toured more widely with the Mighty Wiggle Carnival (owned by Jack Shaffer),[3] Joe Jesse's orchestra, and her own touring review.[6] After settling in New Orleans she played in the band of A.J. Piron, Alphonse Picou, Emile Barnes, and George Lewis.[1]
In 1932, she played piano with Alphonse Picou's five-piece (along with Johnny Dave, banjo; Ernest Milton, drums; Picou, clarinet; Lawrence Toca trumpet) at the Rialto Nightclub on Jefferson Davis Parkway for a couple of years.[3] She performed at the Blue Jay Club, where she met the trumpeter De De Pierce. From 1933 to 1934, she and De De were members of a band including clarinetist, George Lewis, at a dime-a-dance hall, the Kingfish.[6]
Billie and De De married on March 28, 1935 at St. Peter Claver Church.[3] Billie Pierce first recorded with Emile Barnes in 1946 (issued in 1997) and under her own name in 1953.[6]
The couple played with their own ensemble, which served as the house band at Luthjen's Dance Hall on and off for twenty-four years.[3] Billie led the band with the piano and vocals. De De lost his vision due to glaucoma in the 1950s around the same time that Billie suffered a stroke, which paralyzed her for several months, putting a temporary hold on their career.[3]
Their careers picked up again in the 1960s as Dixieland jazz experienced a revival.[8] She was a regular on the New Orleans jazz scene in the 1950s through the early 1970s, playing in the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.[1]
She died in September 29, 1974, in New Orleans, Louisiana, at the age of 67.[6] Her husband had died the previous November, aged 69.[1]
Discography
- 1961 Blues and Tonks from the Delta, Billie & De De Pierce
- 1961 Blues in the Classic Tradition, Billie & De De Pierce
- 1962 Jazz at Preservation Hall: Billie & DeDe Pierce and Jim Robinson's New Orleans Band
- 1966 Billie and De De and their Preservation Hall Jazz Band
- 1991 New Orleans Music
- 1994 In Binghamton, N.Y., Vol. 3
- 1994 In Binghamton, N.Y., Vol. 4
- 1995 Billie Pierce with Raymond Burke
- 1995 With Chris Barber's Jazz Band 1960, Billie & De De Pierce
- 2000 Gulf Coast Blues, Billie & De De Pierce[9]
References
- ^ a b c d e "The Dead Rock Stars Club : 1970". Thedeadrockstarsclub.com. Retrieved 2016-11-12.
- ^ Smith, Jessie (1996). Notable Black Women. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Inc. p. 523. ISBN 9780810347496.
- ^ a b c d e f Tucker, Sherrie (2004). A Feminist Perspective of New Orleans Jazzwomen (PDF). New Orleans: National Park Service. pp. 337–348.
- ^ a b Ashenfelder, Michael (2007-08-13). "New Orleans Piano Players (review)". Notes. 64 (1): 135–137. doi:10.1353/not.2007.0101. ISSN 1534-150X.
- ^ Kernfeld, Barry (1988). The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Vol. 3. Macmillan. p. 292. ISBN 9780333691892.
- ^ a b c d e f "Pierce, Billie (jazz) | Grove Music". doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.j2009981. Retrieved 2018-02-28.
- ^ Feather, Leonard; Gitler (1999). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 529. ISBN 978-0195320008.
- ^ Southern, Eileen (1982). Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians. Greenwood Press. p. 307. ISBN 9780313213397.
- ^ "Billie Pierce | Credits | AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
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