Lucille Hegamin Album Guide and Biography Video

Classic Rock and Roots

Lucille Nelson Hegamin (November 29, 1894 – March 1, 1970) was an American singer and entertainer and an early African-American blues recording artist.  Lucille Nelson was born in Macon, Georgia, the daughter of John and Minnie Nelson. From an early age she sang in local church choirs and theatre programs. By the age of 15 she was touring the US South with the Leonard Harper Minstrel Stock Company. In 1914 she settled in Chicago, Illinois, where, often billed as "The Georgia Peach", she worked with Tony Jackson and Jelly Roll Morton before marrying the pianist-composer Bill Hegamin.

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00:00Lucille Hegeman was one of the earliest and most popular of the early female blues singers.

00:09Hegeman was born Lucille Nelson in Macon, Georgia in 1894, and she began her musical career around

00:191910 as a vaudeville performer before settling in Chicago and marrying pianist Bill Hegeman.

00:27The Hegemans moved to New York City, where Lucille became only the second African-American woman

00:34to make a blues recording. Hegeman made her debut recording in 1920 with the tune

00:42Jasmine Blues for the Arto label. The following year would see her record the huge hit Arkansas

00:51Blues, which made her a serious rival of Mamie Smith, the first African-American woman to record.

01:02Hegeman was extremely prolific during the 1920s, churning out sides for a number of labels,

01:07including Black Swan, Columbia, Paramount, and others. Among her better known sides were Mississippi Blues,

01:17Chattanooga Man, and High Brown Blues. Hegeman retired from music in the mid-30s, only to take up

01:26performing again in the 1960s. Hegeman's classic sides can be found on the Classic Series,

01:34Complete recorded works in chronological order, Volumes 1 to 3, from 1996.

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