Bertha "Chippie" Hill

Bertha "Chippie" Hill (South Carolina, 15 March 1905 - Harlem, New York, May 7, 1950) was an American blues and vaudeville singer and dancer. She made a dozen recordings where Louis Armstrong on Cornet playing.

She comes from a family of sixteen children. In 1915, the family moved to New York, where Bertha in 1916 as a dancer was going to work. She worked as a dancer withEthel Waters (1919). In a well-known nightclub, she got her nickname "Chippie" because she was so young. They toured with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, an itinerant vaudeville show in a tent. Early twenties, she began her solo song-and-dance-act in the T.O.B.A.circuit in the South of America.

In 1925 they established themselves in Chicago and worked in different occasions in the city. In the following years she made with some frequency recordings, 23 in total.In 1925 and 1926, she was for recordings for Okeh accompanied by trumpeter Louis Armstrong on cornet. In 1927 she sang in the record studio duets with Lonnie Johnson. In the 1930s, Bertha Hill held mainly with the education of her children, although she still occasionally sang with Jimmie Noone.

She made in 1946, when she worked in a bakery, a comeback with Rudi Blesh's radio show appearances and recordings for his record label Circle (nine recordings). She appeared afterwards in the Village Vanguard, in Carnegie Hall (in 1948, with Kid Ory) and at the Parisjazz festival. She worked with Art HodesIn Chicago. Bertha Hill died when she was run over by a car in 1950.