Revella Hughes

Revella Eudosia Hughes (July 27, 1895 – October 24, 1987) was an American singer, musician, recording artist, and Broadway performer born in Huntington, West Virginia, to parents George and Anna B. Page Hughes. She pursued formal musical training from an early age, beginning piano and singing lessons at five years old. Hughes earned a diploma from Hartshorn Memorial College in 1909, subsequently studied violin at Douglass High School, graduating in 1915, and went on to receive a Bachelor of Music degree from Howard University in 1917.

Hughes launched her professional career in New York City in 1920, the same year she married Layton Wheaton, son of attorney John Francis Wheaton, who became a dentist. The marriage ended in divorce in 1923. Her early New York work included appearances in Broadway productions alongside Paul Robeson, Marian Anderson, and Roland Hayes. In 1923, she was appointed choral director for the Broadway revue Shuffle Along. Her Broadway career extended from 1923 to 1930 and encompassed credits in the musical Runnin' Wild, the musical Bamboola, and the revue Hot Rhythm. Throughout the 1920s, Hughes also worked in radio and on the B.F. Keith circuit in Huntington, as well as at the Regal Theater in Chicago.

Hughes was widely regarded as one of the most prominent African-American sopranos of the first half of the twentieth century. Following her years as a performing soprano, she turned to composing and arranging, working on the Hammond organ and developing a live-performance program she titled "An Informal Hour of Music." In 1932, she returned to Huntington to care for her widowed mother, and after her mother's death she stepped back from singing, a period that deepened her focus on organ work. In 1953, she toured Europe and the Middle East on USO shows, serving as organist and musical arranger for Gypsy Markoff.

Hughes retired in 1955 but returned to performance in 1980 for engagements connected with the Universal Jazz Coalition festival. A member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated, she died in New York on October 24, 1987, at the age of 91.