History of Performers at the Liberty
The Whitman sisters were some of the biggest stars of black Vaudeville. The four sisters, raised in Atlanta, Georgia, toured and performed with various Vaudeville ensembles, before forming their own group. They became the highest act on T.O.B.A (Theatre Owners Booking Association), a black Vaudeville circuit that included performers like Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, and more. They had an incredibly long and successful touring career that lasted more than forty years, taking them to venues all across the East Coast, including the Liberty.
Gertrude “Ma” Rainey (1886-1939), a Columbus native, was an incredibly influential blues singer and recording artist. She had a natural talent for singing, and began performing for local talent shows at the Springer Opera House here in Columbus. After that, she began touring with vaudeville acts. Rainey developed a unique, “moaning” style of the blues, equally energetic and mournful, fusing her experience with blues, jazz, church music, and vaudeville influences. She performed alongside jazz greats like Louis Armstrong, and was a mentor to the famous singer Bessie Smith. Later in her career, Rainey returned to Columbus, and became a pillar of the music scene in the city.
Cabell “Cab” Calloway (1907-1994) was a wildly popular jazz singer and bandleader. He was born in Rochester, New York, and when Calloway was still young, his family moved to Baltimore, Maryland. Calloway always had a passion for music and performance, and despite his parents’ disapproval, he was far more interested in jazz than any academic endeavors. He began his performing career touring alongside his sister, Blanche Calloway, who herself became one of the first famous female bandleaders. Afterwards, he moved to Chicago for school, where he was a frequent performer at many local Jazz clubs. It was here in Chicago that he began singing with touring ensemble “the Missourians,” which would eventually change names to become “Cab Calloway and his Orchestra.” Calloway and his ensemble recorded and toured the country, including at the Liberty, and he became one of the most renowned jazz vocalists of his time.
Thomas Wright “Fats” Waller (1904-1943) was an innovative jazz pianist, singer, and composer. Born and raised in Harlem, Waller started piano lessons at an early age and began playing organ for his family’s church. His career began at 15 when Waller was hired to play Organ at the Lincoln theatre. After this, Waller began touring and recording, first with Vaudeville groups and big bands, and then as a solo act. His dynamic playing and ingenious composition made Waller an incredibly successful performer and recording artist. Both solo, and with several Bands, Waller recorded and toured the country, making stops at the Liberty.
Nicknamed “Empress of the Blues,” Bessie Smith (1892-1937) was a prominent African American jazz and blues singer in the early 20th century. With both of her parents dying before she turned six, she grew up orphaned and in wretched poverty. To support themselves, her and her brother became street performers on the streets of Chattanooga. In 1912, she was hired as a dancer with the Stokes Troupe, a popular touring black entertainment company that iconic blues singer Ma Rainey was also a part of, who is rumored to have helped Smith develop greater develop her singing voice and stage presence. Smith later joined the black-owned Theater Owners Booming Association and performed at various black theatres across the country South, including the Liberty Theatre, where she shared the stage with Ma Rainey on at least one occasion.
Marian Anderson (1897-1993) was an American contralto born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is best known for singing in a wide variety of genres, including opera, spirituals, jazz, and blues and often shared the stage with major American and European orchestras from the 1920s to the 1960s. She gained world renowned notoriety in 1939 when President Franklin Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt invited her to sing for an integrated crowd of 75,000 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial after the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to let her sing for an integrated crowd at a benefit event. Marian Anderson sang at the Liberty Theatre during its heyday after it first opened between 1925 and 1926.
Lena Horne (1917-2010) was an African-American singer and actress born in New York City. She began her career in the 1930s as a nightclub performer before eventually moving to Broadway, film, and television, though she would still often still ding in nightclubs during t this period as well. Her career as an actress and singer spanned for nearly 70 years before officially retiring in the early 2000s. She was also a notable civil rights activist, marching in many NAACP rallies during the 1950s and 1960s and performed on behalf of the NAACP and SNCC at the NAACP’s March on Washington. Lena Horne performed at the Liberty Theatre early in her career in the 1930s.
Louis Armstrong (born August 4, 1901, in New Orleans, Louisiana) was a pioneering African American trumpeter, singer, and bandleader whose influence helped shape the course of jazz and American popular music. Though he often claimed a patriotic July 4, 1901, birthday, his baptismal certificate confirms his birth on August 4. Rising to prominence in the 1920s, Armstrong became one of the earliest African American musicians to achieve widespread success in the recording industry. Throughout his career, some critics accused him of catering to white audiences or perpetuating racial stereotypes, leading to claims that he betrayed the African American community. However, deeper study of his life and actions reveals the opposite; Armstrong used his artistry, visibility, and personal conviction to challenge racial barriers and advocate for equality. Far from being an “Uncle Tom,” he stands today as both a musical innovator and an important, if sometimes underrecognized, figure in the early struggle for civil rights.
Duke Ellington was a pianist, a composer, and a bandleader. He was born in Washington, D.C. in 1899 as Edward Kennedy Ellington. Duke was a name he picked up in childhood, given to him to describe his elegant manner. His parents were part of the Black middle class of Washington, D.C., and both played music at home.
Ellington started piano lessons at age seven, but it wasn't the music he was learning at his teacher's side that interested him but instead the ragtime music he heard at dance parties and pool halls when he was a teenager. It took being fired from several bands, however, for Ellington to finally learn how to read music. Ellington dropped out of high school to pursue a career in music, and the five-piece band he played with, The Washingtonians, moved from Washington, D.C. to New York City in 1923.
Ellington's real fame came in the 1930s. His band started touring nationally, traveling by train and using the train coaches as dormitories since finding hotels that would accept the Black performers was challenging. World War II saw a recording ban called by the American Federation of Musicians in August 1942, which definitely had an impact on the Ellington band. When World War II ended, Ellington and his band kept touring. In 1946, he wrote the music for the Broadway musical Beggar’s Holiday and later scored the film Asphalt Jungle. The early 1950s were a difficult time for Ellington and the band, but they came back swinging when they performed at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival on July 7 and wowed the audience with a rendition of Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue, opens a new window. The performance at Newport was released as a live recording by Columbia Records as Ellington at Newport opens a window, which became the best selling album of his career. That year also saw Ellington on the cover of Time magazine. The success of the show at Newport opened up more opportunities for touring, and in 1958 he undertook his first large-scale tour of Europe. From that point on, Ellington was a busy world traveler.
