Alice Leslie Carter was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 classic female blues

Classic female blues

Classic female blues was an early form of blues music, popular in the 1920s. An amalgam of traditional folk blues and urban theater music, the style is also known as vaudeville blues. Classic blues were performed by female vocalists accompanied by pianists or small jazz ensembles, and were the...

 singer. She was active as a recording artist in the early 1920s, and her best known tracks were "Decatur Street Blues", and "Aunt Hagar's Children Blues." Although Carter was a contemporary of better known recording artists of the time, such as Ma Rainey

Ma Rainey

Ma Rainey was one of the earliest known American professional blues singers and one of the first generation of such singers to record. She was billed as The Mother of the Blues....

, Bessie Smith

Bessie Smith

Bessie Smith was an American blues singer.Sometimes referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s...

, Clara Smith

Clara Smith

Clara Smith was an American classic female blues singer. She was billed as the "Queen of the Moaners", although Smith actually had a lighter and sweeter voice than her contemporaries and main competitors.-Career:...

, Victoria Spivey

Victoria Spivey

Victoria Spivey was an American blues singer and songwriter. She is best known for her recordings of "Dope Head Blues" and "Organ Grinder Blues", and Spivey variously worked with her sister, Addie "Sweet Pease" Spivey, and with Bob Dylan, Lonnie Johnson, Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Clarence...

, Sippie Wallace

Sippie Wallace

Sippie Wallace was an American singer-songwriter. Her early career in local tent shows gained her the billing "The Texas Nightingale". Between 1923 and 1927, she recorded over 40 songs for Okeh Records, many written by herself or her brothers, George and Hersal Thomas...

, and Bertha "Chippie" Hill, little is known of her life outside of her music.

She is not to be confused with Alice Carter, another blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 singer, who recorded four songs herself in 1923.

Career

Carter recorded eleven sides in 1921, with musical accompaniment led by James P. Johnson

James P. Johnson

James P. Johnson was an American pianist and composer...

 on piano. She recorded at a time when record label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

s were keen to sign up anyone capable of singing a blues song, such was the market demand. However, while some of these performers were less than capable, Carter's work showed her strong vocal abilities. Her output included the first vocalised recording of the W. C. Handy

W. C. Handy

William Christopher Handy was a blues composer and musician. He was widely known as the "Father of the Blues"....

 and Tim Brymn

James Tim Brymn

James "Tim" Brymn, born in Kinston, North Carolina on October 5, 1881 and died in New York City on October 3, 1946, was a jazz musician in the early 1900s from Kinston, North Carolina....

 co-written song, "Aunt Hagar's Children Blues."

On January 20, 1922, Carter competed against Lucille Hegamin

Lucille Hegamin

Lucille Nelson Hegamin was an American singer and entertainer, and a pioneer African American blues recording artist.-Life and career:...

, Daisy Martin

Daisy Martin

Daisy Martin was an African American actress and blues singer. who performed in the classic female blues style that was popular during the 1920s....

, and the eventual winner Trixie Smith

Trixie Smith

Trixie Smith was an African American blues singer, recording artist, vaudeville entertainer, and actress. She made four dozen recordings.-Biography:...

, in a blues singing contest at the Inter-Manhattan Casino in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

All of her recorded output was included on the compilation album

Compilation album

A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...

, Female Blues Singers, Vol. 4: C (1921-1930), released in 1997 by Document Records

Document Records

Document Records is a British record label that specializes in early American blues, bluegrass, gospel, spirituals jazz, and other rural American genres , generally made between 1900 and 1945...

.