EDNA HICKS

Blues singer Edna Hicks was born in New Orleans and was the half-sister of Lizzie Miles and her brother was the trumpet player Herb Morand. Edna left New Orleans sometime around 1916 and worked in a variety of vaudeville and musical comedy shows. She began recording in 1923 with Victor and went on to make records with Brunswick, Gennett, Vocalion, Ajax, Columbia and Paramount. In 1925 she died due to burns that she suffered in an accident involving gasoline in her home in Chicago.

            



            



           


Edna Hicks (October 14, 1895 – August 16, 1925) was an American blues singer and musician.She is best remembered for her recordings of "Hard Luck Blues" and "Poor Me Blues". She also recorded "Down Hearted Blues", and "Gulf Coast Blues" on the Brunswick label in 1923.

Born Edna Landreaux in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, she was the half-sister of Lizzie Miles. She is believed to have moved north in her mid-teens.Popular in black vaudeville in the American midwest in the late 1910s and 1920s, she appeared often in Chicago and Cincinnati, and made recordings for seven different record labels in 1923 and 1924: Victor, Vocalion, Columbia, Gennett, Brunswick, Ajax, and Paramount Records. Her most frequent accompanist was Fletcher Henderson, although recordings also used Porter Grainger and Lemuel Fowler.

In August 1925, while assisting her husband in filling their automobile's gasoline tank, she was burned after splashed gasoline was ignited by a candle she was holding. She died in a Chicago hospital two days later, on August 16, at 29 years old.