Lucille Bogan

Blues singer Lucille Bogan was born in Mississippi in 1897. Little is known so far about her early life, other than at one point she moved from Mississippi to Birmingham, Alabama. Pursuing a career in music, she gained a reputation for, to put it lightly, enthusiastically performing "bawdy" songs, often about such taboo subjects as prostitution, adultery and lesbianism. In 1923 she was in New York City and signed a recording contract with Okeh Records, then relocated again, this time to Chicago, where she recorded for Paramount Records and Brunswick Records. In 1935, using the name Bessie Jackson, she teamed with pianist Walter Roland and signed a contract with the American Recording Co. It was with this company that she put out what is probably her most famous--or notorious--record, "Shave 'Em Dry", with lyrics so explicit they would most likely not be allowed on the airwaves even today. American did not renew her contract when it expired, and she eventually returned to Birmingham, becoming involved in that city's burgeoning blues scene. She put together and managed a blues group, Bogan's Birmingham Busters. She is known to have left Birmingham sometime in the late 1930s or early 1940s and moved to Los Angeles, where she died in 1948.