Clara Smith

Clara Smith (c. 1894 in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, † February 2nd 1935 in Detroit, Michigan) was a popular American blues singer. She was known as "the Queen of the Moaners ".

Around 1910 Clara Smith worked in African-American music theaters and tent shows. Before 1920, she was one of these numbers at the Lyric Theatre in New Orleans and in the TOBA Circuit.

From 1923 she lived in New York City, where she performed in cabarets and Speak Easy's. In the same year she made her first commercially successful recordings for Columbia Records. With this record label, she worked until 1932. 1924 she managed the only Top 30 success with the " Chicago Blues"; their players were Don Redman, Fletcher Henderson, Teddy Nixon, Elmer Chambers and Charlie Dixon. 122 recordings of Clara Smith have survived, often with well-known colleagues, including Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Lem Fowler and Lonnie Johnson.

In 1933, she moved to Detroit. She worked there until her illness early 1935 in music theaters. She died shortly afterwards in hospital from heart failure.