[Dixielandjazz] DeDe Pieerce-New Orleans cornetist/ Billie Pierce/ Goodson sisters

Fri Feb 18 08:54:53 PST 2011

To:  DJML;  Musicians and Jazzfans lists

From: Norman Vickers

This likely will be of limited interest to most on this list.  However  this
post is for the real scholars, 

Today, Feb 18,  is birthdate  of DeDe Pierce, trumpeter/cornetist of New
Orleans  1904-1973.  He was married to pianist Billie Goodson who was also
active in New Orleans. (  excerpt From Jazz Age)

Billie was one of six musical sisters who grew up in Pensacola-see item
below. A few years ago  Barry Martyn of New Orleans brought a musical group
over for a program about the Goodson sisters.  Bruce Boyd Raeburn,Director
of Tulane Jazz Archives was one of the speakers at that event.

The three most famous sisters  were  Billie Goodson Pierce,  Sadie Goodson
and Ida Goodson.    By the time I got to Pensacola in 1965, only Ida was
still here performing.  She would play nightclub gigs during the week and
church on Sundays.  For a long time, she had a  weekend gig at Seville
Quarter.   Local bassist and educator  Harold Andrews, now also deceased,
related that he had taken piano lessons from Ida.

See item below on the Goodson sisters.

1904 

DeDe Pierce, Trumpet/Cornet

b. New Orleans, LA, USA. 

d. 1973
Biography
~by Bradley Torreano 
De De Pierce was an incredible trumpeter and singer who made jazz in the
'40s, '50s, and '60s with his wife, singer/pianist Billie Pierce. Pierce was
born in New Orleans, LA, on February 18, 1904. He first appeared playing
with Arnold Dupas' band in 1924, playing the trumpet. One night while
working at the Blue Jay Club in New Orleans, he met Billie and the two fell
in love. They immediately began playing together, and by 1935 they were the
regular house band at the Luthjens Dance Hall, where they stayed until the
mid-'50s. They released albums throughout this period, but their exit from
the dancehall was due to illness, which also stopped their recording career.

The two were both quite sick; eventually they were hospitalized and De De
lost his sight during the ordeal. Despite this setback, they began recording
again in 1960 and rekindled their careers. Deteriorating health would
eventually take them out of the entertainment industry, but not before De De
played with Ida Cox on her last tour. He passed away in November of 1973,
leaving behind Billie after a long and fruitful career together.
 <http://www.answers.com/topic/de-de-pierce> De De Pierce: Information from
Answers.com

*	Sadie Goodson
*	 
*	Born: March 29, 1901, Pensacola, FL
*	Active: '20s, '30s, '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s
*	Genres: Jazz
*	Instrument: Piano 

Biography

The music career of Sadie Goodson spanned almost the entire 20th century.
She was only 16 years old when she began playing piano with New Orleans jazz
bandleaders such as Buddy Petit <http://www.answers.com/topic/buddie-petit>
and was closing in on 100 years old when she took the stage at the
Copenhagen Jazz Festival in 1998. Despite this remarkable longevity, even
more interest is generated by the Goodson family itself. There were six
sisters, all of whom played piano and at least half of whom also sang. The
best known of the sisters was born as Wilhelmina "Billie" Goodson but
changed her name to Billie Pierce
<http://www.answers.com/topic/billie-pierce>  following her marriage to
trumpeter and vocalist De De Pierce
<http://www.answers.com/topic/de-de-pierce> . The rest of the sisters hung
on to their original surname: there were also Ida Goodson
<http://www.answers.com/topic/ida-goodson-1> , Edna Goodson, Mabel Goodson,
and Della Goodson, listed in order of least obscurity. Sadie Goodson
attached the names of at least two of her husbands to some credits, showing
up at gigs and on recordings as both Sadie Goodson-Colar and Sadie Goodson
Peterson.

The family is without a doubt the most important musical dynasty from the
Pensacola, FL, area. Local historians referring to the Goodson Sisters,
however, usually limit the list to the three most famous and active sisters:
Billie <http://www.answers.com/topic/billie-1> , Ida
<http://www.answers.com/topic/ida-band> , and Sadie. At least that was the
perspective offered by a 2002 stage show entitled The Goodson Sisters:
Pensacola's Greatest Gift to Jazz, a combination of dramatized historical
narrative and musical performances. Like Billie Pierce
<http://www.answers.com/topic/billie-pierce> , Sadie Goodson backed up
classic blues stars Bessie Smith
<http://www.answers.com/topic/elizabeth-elton-smith>  and Ma Rainey
<http://www.answers.com/topic/ma-rainey>  in the early days and between the
'60s and the '90s received a great deal of exposure internationally as part
of the rotating lineup of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Her earliest
important gig had been with the Petit band, lasting into the Roaring
Twenties and including a stint on the S.S. Madison riverboat in which the
band included a musician who may have been her first husband, Chinee Foster.

There are many examples of the sisters working together in various
combinations over the years. In the '20s Sadie Goodson accompanied Edna
Goodson, at that point concentrating on her vocalizing, in a touring revue
known as the Mighty Wiggle Carnival. Many years later the former sister
performed together with Ida Goodson
<http://www.answers.com/topic/ida-goodson-1>  at festivals in both the
United States and abroad. Apparently in their youth, all of the sisters
trekked around the Gulf Coast to get in on jazz opportunities in New Orleans
and surrounding environs, to the great horror of parents who had provided
them with piano training with the hope that careers in gospel music would
follow.

For Sadie Goodson it was pretty much the opposite, mainly holding forth at
many raunchy so-called cabarets with players including Kid Rena
<http://www.answers.com/topic/kid-rena> , Chris Kelly
<http://www.answers.com/topic/chris-kelly-jazz> , and Alex Bigard. In an
action-packed senior moment -- she was more than 80 years old at the time --
she married the illustrious Kid Sheik, apparently one of her childhood
sweethearts. During the mid-'90s the couple relocated to Detroit. While Ida
Goodson <http://www.answers.com/topic/ida-goodson-1>  has provided lengthy
and important information in interviews concerning the sisters' backgrounds,
Sadie Goodson is the sibling who came up with what seems like a most
succinct historical philosophy. When asked in 1993 by a journalist what it
been like backing up Bessie Smith
<http://www.answers.com/topic/elizabeth-elton-smith> , Goodson reportedly
snarled "Buy the records!" ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi 

Read more:  <http://www.answers.com/topic/sadie-goodson#ixzz1EKSYvdh3>
http://www.answers.com/topic/sadie-goodson#ixzz1EKSYvdh3