Lucille was the best selling Blues Diva in 1921/22 and she was still recording forty years later. Billed as ‘The Georgia Peach’ Lucille Nelson learned to sing in Church and went on the road as a singer in a tent show while she was still a teenager. She married pianist Bill Hegamin in 1914 and they performed with Jelly Roll Morton and Bill Jackson in Chicago. By 1919, Lucille was a nightclub singer in New York and after Mamie Smith’s success with ‘Crazy Blues’, she signed with Arto Records and had a string of hits as Arto leased her work to labels all over the country. ‘Jazz Me Blues’ and ‘Arkansas Blues’ were popular hits as the new ‘Race Music’ records made their first impact. This beautiful woman, singing ‘He May be Your Man, But He Comes to See Me Sometimes’, was the epitome of what a Blues Diva was meant to be.

When her Arto contract expired, she signed for Cameo and released another forty tracks as well as appearing in many Broadway shows in the 20s. In the mid-30s, after a decade in cabaret and several seasons in Atlantic City, Lucille trained as a nurse. After 25 years in the profession, she was tempted back on stage by her old friend Victoria Spivey and recorded for Bluesway and Victoria’s own Spivey label in 1962.

Beale Street Mama from 1923;