Josie Miles

Like Mamie Smith, Lena Wilson, Viola McCoy, Etta Mooney, Helen Baxter, Edna Hicks, Esther Bigeou, Lucille Hegamin and the young Ethel Waters, Josie Miles was a vaudeville blues entertainer whose records are intriguing relics of a bygone era. During the early 1920s, with the recording industry in its infancy, Josie Miles and her contemporaries performed catchy pop and blues-inflected melodies within a limited stylistic range, sometimes backed by musicians who were destined to play important roles in the rapid evolution of jazz and popular music. Relatively few of the women who were making records before 1925 continued to do so as recording technology improved and popular tastes began to modernize. The Josie Miles discography contains about 50 recordings dating from the years 1922-1925. Information about her life is scarce and limited. Born in Summerville, SC around 1900, Josie Miles gravitated to New York City and in 1922 toured with Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake's comedic revue Shuffle Along. Her first phonograph records were cut in August 1922 for Harry Pace's African-American-owned Black Swan label, for which she waxed about eight titles before switching to Gennett in September 1923. During that year she entertained theater audiences in Columbus, OH, toured the vaudeville circuit with the Black Swan Troubadors, sang over WDT radio in New York and performed in James P. Johnson's Runnin' Wild, the show that featured a new song and dance called the Charleston. When Black Swan was absorbed by Paramount in 1924, the 1922 recordings of Josie Miles were released as Paramounts. By then she had records on the market bearing the Gennett, Ajax, Edison, and Banner labels; more would appear in 1925 and her music is believed to have been released on as many as 16 different labels....