Victoria Spivey

Victoria Regina Spivey was a blues singer, songwriter, and record label owner whose career spanned five decades from the classic blues era to the folk revival. She recorded her first hit, 'Black Snake Blues,' for Okeh in 1926 at age 19, launching a prolific recording career that produced dozens of sides for Victor, Vocalion, and Decca through the 1930s. She appeared in the 1929 film 'Hallelujah!' and worked with Louis Armstrong, Lonnie Johnson, and other major figures. After years away from music, she founded Spivey Records in 1962, one of the first artist-owned blues labels, which documented both classic-era survivors and younger artists including a very young Bob Dylan, who appeared on a 1962 Spivey session.