Hattie King Reavis

Hattie King Reavis, born Hattie Beatrice King on November 18, 1890, in Woodsworth, North Carolina, was an American singer, songwriter, and theater performer. The daughter of Lucy Davis and Wiley King, she married Stephen J. Reavis on July 8, 1914, in Manhattan. She is also identified in records under the names H. King Reavis and Hattie Beatrice Reavis. She died on March 12, 1970, in New York.

Reavis began her professional career as a soprano vocalist, joining the Southern Syncopated Orchestra in March 1919. The orchestra traveled through Ohio and Indiana before a Chicago engagement at Orchestra Hall on April 20. Reavis sailed to England aboard the SS Northland, arriving in Liverpool in June 1919 as part of the first contingent of the orchestra's 36 members. London performances followed in July, and a reviewer for The Musical Standard praised her rendition of Swanee River. The orchestra performed at multiple London venues, including Buckingham Palace, the Philharmonic Hall, and the Royal Albert Hall. A critic for The Graphic described her as a "colored prima donna" and commended her rendering of Listen to the Lambs, while a reviewer for the Nottingham Guardian noted that her performance of Sinner, Please, Don' Let dis Harvest Pass earned two standing ovations. Her repertoire during this period included Dear Old Pal of Mine, Give Me All of You, Good Morning Brother Sunshine, Mammy's Little Coal Black Rose, and The Awakening. The orchestra extended its tour to Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Liverpool in December 1919, with sections of the group continuing to perform across Britain through 1921.

Beginning in January 1921, Reavis took on an additional role as a talent scout for the Southern Syncopated Orchestra, recruiting members including Elmer Certain, Farley Berry Graden, Herbert Eugene Parker, and Walter Bernard Williams. Williams was among those lost when the SS Rowan sank in October 1921 after colliding with two other vessels near Corsewall Point, leaving 13 crew members and three passengers unaccounted for. Reavis was aboard the ship and survived, though she lost her passport in the disaster, as documented in her affidavit when applying for a replacement. She resumed touring with the orchestra, performing in Vienna between October and November 1921 and returning there in the summer of 1922. September 1922 brought engagements in Prague and Budapest before she returned to the United States on December 13, 1922.

Concurrent with her touring work, Reavis recorded for Harry Pace's Black Swan Records as early as 1921. Pace selected her alongside Florence Cole Talbert, Antoinette Garnes, and Kemper Herreld for his "Red Label" series. Advertisements in The Crisis confirmed the April 1922 release of her recording of There Is a Green Hill Far Away paired with I'm So Glad Trouble Don't Last Always. She also recorded an arrangement by R. Nathaniel Dett of I'm So Glad for Black Swan in 1923. In 2019, Parnassus Records in Woodstock, New York, released a CD titled Black Swans, compiling 22 performances transferred from 78-rpm records and digitally restored. The disc included recordings by Reavis and Cole-Talbert, with the order of Reavis's selections reversed from the original 1921 release, placing the Dett arrangement before the Charles Gounod piece.

In 1923, Reavis took the principal role in The Sheik of Harlem at Harlem's Lafayette Theatre, appearing opposite Irvin C. Miller. Critic Theophilus Lewis praised her rendition of It Don't Pay to Love a Northern Man in from the South, and her duet with Alonzo Fenderson, Just the Man We Can't Forget, a tribute to the recently deceased president Warren G. Harding, was well received by audiences. Throughout 1924, she performed on the recital circuit at churches in New York, North Carolina, and Virginia. A favorable review followed her appearance in the 1925 production Chocolate Dandies. She then returned to Europe, performing in Louis Douglas's revue Black People in Berlin and Zürich in 1926. Subsequent touring took her through Norway, Sweden, Russia, Italy, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, France, Belgium, and Germany as part of the Creole Review. In London in 1928, she was accompanied by Amanda Ira Aldridge, daughter of Ira Aldridge, in a performance of one of Reavis's own compositions. She returned to the United States from Gibraltar in April 1930.

Back in New York, Reavis appeared in Douglas's Brownskin Models of 1931 at the Lafayette Theater in 1930. In 1932, she gave recitals and performed in the touring company of the Broadway revival of Show Boat, the credit that connects her to the Broadway database record for that year. She appeared in Abram Hill's On Strivers Row in 1940 at a New York Public Library branch in Harlem, and again in a 1946 production of the same play at the American Negro Theater in Harlem. In 1940, she was elected to the board of the American Guild of Variety Artists for the New York Chapter, and in 1946 she became executive secretary of the American Negro Theater. Reavis continued acting and writing songs through the end of the 1940s. Upon retiring from singing in 1949, she managed the career of Urylee Leonardos.