Rosa Henderson

Rose Henderson, born Rosa Deschamps (Henderson, Kentucky, 1896 - november 24, Roosevelt Island, New York City, april 6, 1968) was an American vaudevilleentertainer and jazz-and-bluessinger. She was in the 1920s and 1930s, one of the great classic blues singers and has recorded with Fletcher Henderson.

In 1913, she began her career as a vaudeville entertainer when she joined the circus show group of her uncle, who in the South of America toured and performed in tents and on plantations, especially in Texas. In 1918 she met Douglas "Slim" Henderson, whom she married and went touring in a show with John Mason. The couple settled in early 1920s New York, where she performed with the Mason-Henderson Group in large theatres and self had success on their own feet in revues as "the Harlem Rounders Revue" (1927).

From 1923 she made record for all kinds of record labels that race-music (from ' black ' musicians) released, including Vocalion and Victor and all kinds of smaller labels. She took vaudeville numbers and blues songs ("Penitentiary Bound Blues" and "Back Wood Blues"), where she was tutored by different groups of musicians, including Paul Whiteman's Orchestra, but especially from the Fletcher Henderson band which itself invariably sat behind the piano. Among the musicians were some men who were big names in jazz, including Coleman Hawkins, Don Redman,Fats Waller, Louis Metcalf, Bubber Miley and Rex Stewart (the last three later were active for Duke Ellington). The plates of Rosa Henderson published under her own name, but they also used various pseudonyms, such as Sally Ritz (on the label Banner), Flora Dale (on Domino), Josephine Thomas and Mamie Harris (on Perfect and Pathé). All in all she took such a 92 songs on.

At the height of her fame, her husband died in 1927, "Slim", from which they never fully recovered. She performed a few times on, among other things with John Mason, then withdrew from the music business. Around 1932 she went to work in a department store in New York and focus on the education of her daughter, who later ended up in show business.

In 1951, she unexpectedly back in the studio to record for Columbia pictures with James p. Johnson. ==Discography[ Edit] ==
 * Complete Recorded Works, vol. 1-4, Document Records, 1995
 * The Essential, Classic Blues, 2001