Georgia White born 9 March 1903

Georgia White (March 9, 1903 – c.1980) was an African-American blues singer who recorded mildly risqué blues songs from the mid-30s through the early '40s.

Georgia White was one of the rare female blues singers of the post classic era who can be compared to Memphis Minnie. Although she did not belong to the world of vaudeville that had produced the first female blues singers (Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey), she managed to combine their influence with that of the southern barrel-houses.

She was a powerful piano player in the tradition of these places, where it was necessary above all to make oneself heard. She used her instrument to enhance her amazing voice with a register that was rarely equaled.

Little is known of her early life, but it has been suggested that she was born in Sandersville, Georgia. By the late 1920s she was singing in clubs in Chicago. She made her first recording, "When You're Smiling, the Whole World Smiles With You," with Jimmie Noone's orchestra in 1930. She returned to the studio in 1935, and over the next six years recorded over 100 tracks for Decca Records, usually accompanied by the pianist Richard M. Jones and also, in the late 1930s, by the guitarist Lonnie Johnson.

                           

Her repertoire which contained a biting irony, enabled her to have a big commercial hit with such pieces as “Hot Nuts! Get ‘em from the Peanut Man” and "I'll Keep Sitting on It," "Take Me for a Buggy Ride," "Mama Knows What Papa Wants When Papa's Feeling Blue," and "Hot Nuts." Her best-known song was "You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now" (1935). She also recorded under the name Georgia Lawson.

Her jazz-blues style, contrary to that of most of her contemporaries, aged very little. It was based on the use of a strong rhythm section that announced the postwar Chicago blues and on the participation of excellent musicians like the guitar player Ikey Robinson. All together, the hundred or so titles that she recorded for Decca between 1935 and 1941 are first rate.

White formed an all-female band in the 1940s. She also performed with Bumble Bee Slim. She joined Big Bill Broonzy's Laughing Trio in 1949 as pianist. "She was very easy to get along with," said Broonzy, "real friendly." She was a club singer in the 1950s, finally performing in 1959 in Chicago. She then resumed performing on weekends at the Blue Pub, a bar on Irving Park Road near the Kennedy Expressway, where she quickly won a loyal following. She sang many of her famous songs, including "Maybe I'm Wrong Again," a ballad from an early Bing Crosby movie.

Her complete work has been reissued on four CDs on the Austrian Document label.

(Edited from Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Of The Blues)