Esther Bigeou (1893 – November 15, 1934) Esther, a
lady we can’t tell you too much about, as was the case with so many of these
artists, her background and private life is a mystery or if recorded, dubious
in its authenticity and often impossible to confirm.
She was an American vaudeville and blues singer. Billed as ‘The girl with the million dollar smile’, she was one of the classic
female blues singers popular in the 1920s.
She was actually born
Hester Bijou in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1893.
She mostly recorded
for OKeh Records at the height of
her recording period in 1921/1923. Esther toured the Theatre Owners
Booking Association vaudeville circuit with
the Billy King Company in 1923. From 1923 to 1925 and from 1927 to 1930,
she toured as a single act in the American South, Midwest, and Northeast.
The blues writer Chris
Smith said that Esther was a singer at the pop end of African-American
entertainment scene and that she seems to have retired, aged only 35, to settle
in New Orleans, where it seems she died circa 1936. As just another
anomaly, her death certificate states that she actually died on November 15,
1934, at Charity Hospital in
New Orleans of pulmonary congestion accompanied
by marked emaciation and dehydration.