'Texas Nightingale' ended her career in Michigan
From the time she was 7 years old, Beulah Thomas loved singing in front of an audience.
Her talent took Thomas from her father's church in Texas to record nearly 50 blues albums and the honor of being her home state's beloved "Texas Nightingale".
Born in 1899, this veteran performer took the professional name "Sippie" Wallace.
As a young woman, she performed in a traveling tent show with her brothers. In 1915, she moved to New Orleans, where she mingled with the likes of New Orleans Jazz musicians, like King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Clarence Williams, Sidney Bechet and Johnny Dodds among others.
Sippie married Matt Wallace in 1917, and never missed a beat. Following her brothers to Chicago in the early 1920s, She played the vaudeville circuit and recorded hit blues records, nearly 50 in all. As the country slipped into a depression and recording opportunities dried up, Sippie left the vaudeville circuit when she and her husband moved to Detroit around 1929. She continued performing in Detroit clubs and cabarets until 1937, when her husband died.
Sippie led a quiet life, supporting herself by teaching lessons and playing in churches until 1966, when a 16-year-old college ethno music major set her back on the road to international acclaim.
In 1966 and 1967, she appeared at the Newport Folk Blues Festival, at the Chicago Blues Festival in 1967 and at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival in 1972.
A stroke in 1972 slowed her down, but with the help of Bonnie Raitt, she recorded the album, "Sippie", which featured Raitt with Atlantic Records. The album was nominated for a Grammy in 1983 and won a W.C. Handy Award for best blues album in 1984.
Wallace died in 1986 at age 88. She was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.
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