Ada Jones

Comedy Section

Ada Jones was the leading female recording artist in the acoustic recording  era, especially popular from 1905 to 1912 or so. Her singing range was limited  but she was remarkably versatile, being successful with vaudeville sketches, sentimental ballads, hits from Broadway shows, British music hall material, "coon" and ragtime songs, and Irish comic songs. She was known for an ability to  mimic dialects.

Victor catalogs listed roles at which she excelled: "Whether Miss Jones' impersonation be that of a darky wench, a little German maiden, a 'fresh'  saleslady, a cowboy girl, a country damsel, Mrs. Flanagan or an Irish colleen, a  Bowery tough girl, a newsboy or a grandmother, it is invariably a perfect one of its kind."

Columbia catalogs as late as 1921 stated: "Miss Jones is without question the cleverest singer of soubrette songs, popular child ballads and popular ragtime  hits adaptable for the soprano voice now recording for any Company. She is also one of the most popular singers in the record field and her records have been  heard in all quarters of the globe. Her duet records with Mr. [Walter] Van Brunt, unique and entertaining as they are, have also come in for unlimited  popular approval."

Despite this high praise in Columbia's 1921 catalog, very little of her vast output was available by the early 1920s. For example, of the nearly two hundred titles that she recorded for Columbia from 1904 to 1917, only six remained in the catalog by 1921--five duets and one solo effort, "Cross My Heart and Hope To Die."

During most of her recording years she resided in Huntington Station, Long Island, New York. She died of uremic poisoning (a kidney failure) in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, on May 2, 1922, while on a performing tour. The town's newspaper, The Evening Telegram, had announced days earlier that Jones and her  company would perform at the local Palace Theater on Saturday evening. Her  company consisted of obscure artists--violinist Beth Hamilton; pianist and  soprano Mabel Loomis; and one "Armstrong," identified as a "man of mystery, who  will entertain by moments of mystifying and being funny." A feature length  motion picture and two-reel comedy were also scheduled for the evening's  entertainment.