SMITH, ADA BEATRICE

SMITH, ADA BEATRICE (BRICKTOP). Popular-music singer (14 August 1894 in Alderson, West Virginia). She began singing in nightclubs in New York at the age of sixteen. In 1916 she sang in Chicago, Illinois, as a member of The Panama Girls, along with Cora Greene and Florence Mills. In 1924 she went to Paris, France, to sing in a Montmartre cafe, but soon began operating her own club—called Chez Bricktop and located on the Rue Pigalle (1926-39). Later she owned clubs...