Billie Pierce

Wilhelminia "Billie " Pierce ( born June 8, 1907 in Marianna (Florida ) as Wilhelmina Goodson, † September 29, 1974 in New Orleans) was an American pianist and singer of the New Orleans Jazz.

Billie Pierce was one of seven piano -playing sisters; their parents were pianists. In the early 1920s accompanied Billie Pierce two weeks the singer Bessie Smith in a theater in Pensacola; then she was with the Might Wiggle Carnival show on the road and played in various bands with the same instrumentation as in the New Orleans style. End of the decade she moved to New Orleans to replace her sister Sadie in the band of Buddy Petit. In 1930 she became a member of the bands of Alphonse Picou, where she remained until 1932. They also played in the groups of Emile Barnes and George Lewis. Mid-1930s, she played in the Blue Jay Club, where she met the cornet player Dee Dee Pierce ( 1904-1973 ), whom she married in 1935. With him, she founded and directed an ensemble that served as the house band at the Luthjen 's Dance Hall in the 1950s. In the 1960s, she had a remarkable comeback with their mix of blues, boogie woogie and jazz. She played band in the Preservation Hall Jazz and was active until the early 1970s in the New Orleans jazz scene. She died a few months after her husband.

Disco Graphical Notes

• Billie Pierce (with Raymod Burke) ( American Music, 1950-1954 )
• Gulf Coast Blues ( Arhoolie, 1959)
• With Kid Thomas Valentine 1960 (504 Jazz, 1960)
• New Orleans - The Living Legends (Original Blues Classics, 1961)

Swell

• Richard Cook & Brian Morton: The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings. London, Penguin, 2006 ( 8th edition ); ISBN 0-141-02327-9
• Linda Dahl Stormy Weather. The Music and Lives of a Century of Jazz Women. Quartet Books. London, 1984; ISBN 0-7043-2477-6