Blues singer Esther Bigeou (c.1892 – November 15, 1936) was a cousin of drummer Paul Barbarin which made her part of one of the most musical families in New Orleans in the Teens and 1920s.
Despite her Jazz pedigree, her style tends to be more vaudeville oriented than Blues and Jazz sounding. Esther Bigeou came to prominence as a singer in the musical revue “Broadway Rastus” which was staged in Philadelphia and New York in 1917.
Bigeou was one of many vaudeville singers who picked up on the Blues fad and recorded Blues records after the amazing success of Mamie Smith’s Crazy Blues. On her March of 1923 sides Bigeou is accompanied by Rickett’s Stars. On The December 13th, 1923 sides she is accompanied by Piron’s New Orleans Orchestra on all other sides she is accompanied by Clarence Williams.
Bigeou’s style is very similar to Mamie Smith‘s who was also a vaudeville performer. Bigeou toured the country throughout the 1920s working the TOBA circuit. She reportedly left the music business and returned to New Orleans sometime around 1930.
| Title | Recording Date | Recording Location | Company |
| Aggravatin’ Papa (Don’t You Try To Two-Time Me) (Roy Turk / J. Russel Robinson) |
3-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8053 |
| Beale St. Blues (W.C. Handy) |
3-28-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8058-B |
| Beale Street Mama Piano Accompaniment by Clarence Williams (Roy Turk / J. Russel Robinson) |
3-15-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8057-A |
| Four O’Clock Blues (Johnny Dunn / Gus Horsley) |
3-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8054-B |
| The Gulf Coast Blues (Clarence Williams) |
3-20-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8056-A |
| The Hesitating Blues (W.C. Handy) |
3-28-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8065-B |
| If That’s What You Want Here It Is (Shepard N. Edmonds) |
11-15-1921 | New York, New York | Okeh 8025-B |
| I’m Through With You (As I Can Be) Piano Accompaniment by Clarence Williams (Billy Higgins) |
3-15-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8057-B |
| The Memphis Blues (W.C. Handy) |
10-5-1921 | New York, New York | Okeh 8026 |
| Nervous Blues (Perry Bradford) |
11-15-1921 | New York, New York | Okeh 8029-A |
| Outside Of That, He’s All Right With Me (Clarence Williams) |
3-20-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8056-B |
| Panama Limited Blues (Esther Bigeou / Maceo Pinkard) |
12-13-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8125-B |
| The St. Louis Blues (W.C. Handy) |
10-5-1921 | New York, New York | Okeh 8026 |
| Stingaree Blues (A Down Home Blues) (Clinton A. Kemp) |
11-5-1921 | New York, New York | Okeh 8025-A |
| That Twa-Twa Tune (Aaron C. Thompson) |
12-2-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8118-B |
| West Indies Blues (Clarence Williams / Spencer Williams / Edgar Dowell) |
12-14-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8118-A |
| You Ain’t Treating Me Right (Esther Bigeou / Clarence Williams) |
12-13-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8125-A |
| Artist | Instrument |
| Bob Ricketts? | Piano |
| Clarence Williams | Piano |
Redhotjazz.com was a pioneering website during the "Information wants to be Free" era of the 1990s. In that spirit we are recovering the lost data from the now defunct site and sharing it with you.
Most of the music in the archive is in the form of MP3s hosted on Archive.org or the French servers of Jazz-on-line.com where this music is all in the public domain.
Files unavailable from those sources we host ourselves. They were made from original 78 RPM records in the hands of private collectors in the 1990s who contributed to the original redhotjazz.com. They were hosted as .ra files originally and we have converted them into the more modern MP3 format. They are of inferior quality to what is available commercially and are intended for reference purposes only. In some cases a Real Audio (.ra) file from Archive.org will download. Don't be scared! Those files will play in many music programs, but not Windows Media Player.
