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Eva Taylor, born Irene Joy Gibbons on January 22, 1895 in St. Louis, Missouri, was an American blues singer and stage actress who began performing at age three. She toured extensively before settling in New York City by 1920. In 1922, Taylor made her first record for Black Swan Records, billed as "The Dixie Nightingale." Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, she recorded dozens of blues, jazz, and popular sides for Okeh and Columbia Records, collaborating with Clarence Williams, her husband and producer. Taylor also appeared on Broadway in Bottomland (1927) and had her own radio show on NBC's Cavalcade in 1929. She stopped performing during the 1940s but returned in the mid-1960s, touring Europe until her final performance in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1976. Taylor died from cancer on October 31, 1977.
