Ida Cox
PerformerName
Ida Cox
About
Ida Cox was a popular recording “blues queen” during the successful era of race records in the early 1920s. Born in Toccoa, Georgia, Cox began singing in minstrel shows at a young age and started performing in theaters at fourteen years old. Her first recorded song was in 1923 for Paramount Records, entitled “Any Woman’s Blues” (written by Lovie Austin). She sang often with piano accompaniment, particularly with pianists Lovie Austin and Jesse Crump. Cox earned the title of “Uncrowned Queen of the Blues.” Her vocal style was recognizable, with a nasal and resonant quality. Unlike other musicians of the time, Cox carved her niche primarily singing blues, and did not have to rely on singing Vaudeville songs.
Cox was a prolific composer and wrote almost one hundred songs throughout her career. Scholar Daphne Duval Harrison writes that “unlike much of the early blues which came from the ‘southern black rural experience,’ Ida Cox’s ‘Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues’ [depicted] “the new city woman who had fled from medieval to modern America,” and addressed issues of the working poor in the cities. Her songs covered themes that were typically taboo for women, from songs about sexual liberation and women’s independence to her somber graveyard series of songs.
Cox was a prolific composer and wrote almost one hundred songs throughout her career. Scholar Daphne Duval Harrison writes that “unlike much of the early blues which came from the ‘southern black rural experience,’ Ida Cox’s ‘Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues’ [depicted] “the new city woman who had fled from medieval to modern America,” and addressed issues of the working poor in the cities. Her songs covered themes that were typically taboo for women, from songs about sexual liberation and women’s independence to her somber graveyard series of songs.
Further Reading:
Daphne Duval Harrison. Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920s. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 1988.
Daphne Duval Harrison. Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920s. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 1988.
Role(s)
Performer
Birth date
February 25, 1896
Death date
November 10, 1967
Genre
Ida Cox was a popular recording “blues queen” during the successful era of race records in the early 1920s. Born in Toccoa, Georgia, Cox began singing in minstrel shows at a young age and started performing in theaters at fourteen years old. Her first recorded song was in 1923 for Paramount Records, entitled “Any Woman’s Blues” (written by Lovie Austin). She sang often with piano accompaniment, particularly with pianists Lovie Austin and Jesse Crump. Cox earned the title of “Uncrowned Queen of the Blues.” Her vocal style was recognizable, with a nasal and resonant quality. Unlike other musicians of the time, Cox carved her niche primarily singing blues, and did not have to rely on singing Vaudeville songs.
Cox was a prolific composer and wrote almost one hundred songs throughout her career. Scholar Daphne Duval Harrison writes that “unlike much of the early blues which came from the ‘southern black rural experience,’ Ida Cox’s ‘Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues’ [depicted] “the new city woman who had fled from medieval to modern America,” and addressed issues of the working poor in the cities. Her songs covered themes that were typically taboo for women, from songs about sexual liberation and women’s independence to her somber graveyard series of songs.
Cox was a prolific composer and wrote almost one hundred songs throughout her career. Scholar Daphne Duval Harrison writes that “unlike much of the early blues which came from the ‘southern black rural experience,’ Ida Cox’s ‘Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues’ [depicted] “the new city woman who had fled from medieval to modern America,” and addressed issues of the working poor in the cities. Her songs covered themes that were typically taboo for women, from songs about sexual liberation and women’s independence to her somber graveyard series of songs.
