Hannah Sylvester

Hannah Sylvester (January 19, 1903 – October 15, 1973) was an American blues singer and Broadway performer born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A practitioner of the classic female blues style that dominated the 1920s, she was marketed under the billing "Harlem's Mae West." She began singing and dancing at the age of three, and is believed to have relocated to New York City around 1920.

Sylvester's early professional career took shape in the first half of the 1920s. She performed at the Paradise Cafe in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and in 1923 entered the recording studio with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, cutting eleven sides. Through the remainder of the decade she worked the vaudeville theater circuit on tour.

As the 1930s began, Sylvester became a fixture in New York City revues. In 1931 she appeared with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra at the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C., in a performance broadcast over WSJV radio. Her Broadway career brought her to the 1933 musical Hummin' Sam. During the same period she participated in numerous revues across New York City.

Sylvester's work in the 1940s included a tour with the Snooky Russell Orchestra in 1940. By the early 1950s her focus shifted largely away from music; she worked as a bartender at the Celebrity Club in New York City, where she also sang periodically with the Buddy Tate Band. In 1962 she appeared in the X-Glamour Girls revue in New York City and recorded for Victoria Spivey's Spivey Records. Sylvester died in New York City on October 15, 1973.