Esther Bigeou (1893 – November 15, 1934) [1] 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. Several members of her extended family were musicians; the drummer Paul Barbarin was her cousin. 
In 1913 she began touring in vaudeville with the performer and playwright Irvin C. Miller; they later married. In 1917 Esther appeared as a singer, dancer, and recitalist in the revue Broadway Rastus, written by Irvin Miller, at the Standard Theatre in Philadelphia; the Lafayette Theatre in New York City; and the Orpheum Theatre in Baltimore. 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.  .