Scott, Esther Mae Mother
(1893–1979)> SINGER · COMPOSER OF BLUES · SPIRITUALS · ACOUSTIC GUITARIST
Scott, Esther Mae Mother 1893; Polk Plantation, Bovina, MS – 16 October 1979; Washington, DC Singer, composer of blues and spirituals, and acoustic guitarist. From the 1910s through the 1920s, she traveled as a singer and dancer in black entertainment troupes, working with Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Leadbelly . For some years she worked as a baby nurse. In the 1940s she moved to Washington, D.C., where she resumed her singing, initially in church and later in clubs, at civil rights…