Ida Cox

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Ida Cox (October, 1890 - 10 November 1967) was a popular African American singer, best known for her Blues performances and recordings.

Cox was born October, 1890, although historically listed as February, 1896), as Ida Prather in Toccoa, Habersham County, Georgia (Toccoa was in Habersham County, not yet Stephens County at the time), the daughter of Lamax and Susie (Knight) Prather, and grew up in Cedartown, Georgia, singing in the local African Methodist Church choir. She left home to tour with traveling minstrel shows, often appearing in blackface in to the 1910s; she married fellow minstrel performer Adler Cox.

After the tremendous success of Mamie Smith's pioneering 1920 recording of "Crazy Blues", record companies realized there was a demand for recordings of race music. The classic female blues era had begun, and would extend through the twenties. From 1923 through 1929 Cox made numerous recordings for Paramount Records, and headlined touring companies, sometimes billed as the "Sepia Mae West", continuing into the thirties.^[1] In 1939 she appeared at Café Society Downtown, in New York's Greenwich Village, and participated in the historic Carnegie Hall concert, From Spirituals to Swing. That year, she also resumed her recording career with a series of sessions for Vocalion Records and, in 1940, Okeh with groups that at various times included guitarist Charlie Christian, trumpeters Hot Lips Page and Henry "Red" Allen, trombonist J.C. Higginbotham, and Lionel Hampton. She had spent several years in retirement by 1960, when record producer Chris Albertson persuaded her to make one final recording, an album for Riverside. Her accompanying group comprised Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, pianist Sammy Price, bassist Milt Hinton, and drummer Jo Jones. Ms. Cox referred to the album as her "final statement," and, indeed, it was. She returned to live with her daughter in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she died in 1967.