Mae Barnes

Mae Barnes, born Edith Mae Stith in New York City, was an American jazz singer, dancer, and comic entertainer whose Broadway career spanned from 1925 to 1954. Her year of birth is uncertain: most sources cite January 23, 1907, though blues researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc, drawing on 1900 and 1910 census records, propose 1892. She died on December 13, 1996, in New York, from cancer, leaving no close relatives.

Barnes left school around 1919 and began working as a chorus girl rather than relocating to Cleveland, Ohio, as she had reportedly planned. She developed her skills as a tap dancer and singer through vaudeville work and tours of the South in productions including Bon Bon Buddy Jr. and Dinah. Her Broadway debut came in 1924 with Runnin' Wild, a revue in which she introduced the Charleston dance to Broadway audiences, earning her the nickname "the bronze Ann Pennington." On a subsequent tour of Shuffle Along in 1927, entertainer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson described her as "the greatest living female tap dancer."

Her Broadway credits included the 1927 musical Rang Tang and The Rainbow, in which she appeared alongside Charlie Ruggles and performed a notably comic rendition of the Black Bottom. She also appeared in Hot Rhythm, the musical Lucky Sambo, and By the Beautiful Sea, the last of her Broadway engagements. Throughout much of the 1930s she continued performing in Broadway productions, among them the Ziegfeld Follies, while also touring on the Keith vaudeville circuit.

In 1938, Barnes broke her pelvis in an automobile accident, which effectively ended her dancing career. She redirected her focus to singing and went on to perform in nightclubs across Hollywood, Honolulu, and New York City. Her New York engagements included a seven-year residency at the Boite in Greenwich Village and appearances at Park Avenue clubs. In the late 1940s she performed at gatherings hosted by socialite Elsa Maxwell and gave benefit shows for hospitals. She toured Europe in 1950 and remained in London to take the lead role in Jack Hylton's revue Knight of Madness.

Returning to New York in 1951, Barnes became the featured attraction at the Bon Soir club on Eighth Street, where she performed with the vocal group the Three Flames, consisting of Tiger Haynes, Roy Testamark, and Averill Pollard. Their performances drew the attention of Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun of Atlantic Records, who released her first EP in 1953. An LP, Fun with Mae Barnes, followed in 1954, on which she was accompanied by Garland Wilson and the Three Flames. The record included "(I Ain't Gonna Be No) Topsy" and "On the Sunny Side of the Street," the latter becoming her signature song. She became recognized for her interpretations of familiar material and her comic interpolations into established lyrics.

During the mid-1950s Barnes appeared regularly on television variety shows and headlined at the Apollo Theatre. In 1958 she recorded a second album, Mae Barnes, for Vanguard Records, backed by a jazz group led by trumpeter Buck Clayton. In 1959 she appeared in the Harry Belafonte film Odds Against Tomorrow in the role of a club singer. The Erteguns recorded a live performance at the Playboy Club in 1960 for a projected album that was never released. Barnes continued to perform in clubs through the 1970s and 1980s and appeared in the 1987 documentary Wild Women Don't Have the Blues.