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Washin' the Blues
from My Soul

Sophie Tucker

Sophie Tucker, Ted Shapiro

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Celebrated vocalist Sophie Tucker produced this record in New York City in 1930 featuring Ted Shapiro piano, with orchestral accompaniment.

*"Washing the Blues from My Soul" was written by David Oppenheim and J. Russel Robinson.

Sophie Tucker started singing for tips in her family's restaurant. In 1903, at the age of 19, she was briefly married to Louis Tuck, from which she decided to change her name to "Tucker."

Tucker played piano and sang burlesque and vaudeville tunes, at first in blackface. She later said that this was at the insistence of theatre managers, who said she was "too fat and ugly" to be accepted by an audience in any other context.

She made a name for herself in a style that was known at the time as a "Coon Shouter", performing African American influenced songs. Not content with performing in the simple minstrel traditions, Tucker hired some of the best African American singers of the time to give her lessons, and hired African American composers to write songs for her act. *One such song "Washing The Blues From My Soul" (heard here) was written by David Oppenheim and J. Russel Robinson.

In 1921, Tucker hired pianist and songwriter Ted Shapiro as her accompanist and musical director, a position he would keep throughout her career. Besides writing a number of songs for Tucker, Shapiro became part of her stage act, playing piano on stage while she sang, and exchanging banter and wisecracks with her in between numbers.