#bea booze

BEA BOOZE

“See See Rider Blues” was Bea’s only hit song. It’s a cover of Ma Rainey’s 1925 track (one that she would often use as an encore during live performances). The song is a lonesome, vengeful number about a woman scorned.

I’m gonna buy me a pistol
Just as long as I am tall
Lawd, lawd, lawd
Kill my man and
Catch the Cannonball
If he don’t have me
He won’t have no gal at all

BEA BOOZE

One hell of a name. She was literally born Beatrice Booze in 1912, in Baltimore. Her family was musical; her brothers played piano and she learned to play tenor guitar growing up, later making her way to Harlem to become a performer. Booze signed to Decca Records and made a living as a singer, but retired from the industry in the 1950s.