Eva Taylor

Eva Taylor (January 22, 1895 — October 31, 1977) was an American blues singer and stage actress.

Born Irene Joy Gibbons in St. Louis, Missouri, on stage from the age of three, Taylor toured New Zealand, Australia and Europe before her teens. She also toured extensively with the "Josephine Gassman and Her Pickaninnies" vaudeville act. She settled in New York by 1920. There she established herself as a performer in Harlem nightspots. Within a year she wed Clarence Williams, a producer (hired by Okeh Records), publisher, and piano player. The newlyweds worked together on radio and recordings. The couple recorded together through 1930s. Their legacy includes numbers made as the group Blue Five in the mid-1920s, which included jazz clarinetist/saxophonist Sidney Bechet, trumpet virtuoso Louis Armstrong, and such singers as Sippie Wallace and Bessie Smith.