Sissieretta Joyner Jones

Born Matilda Joyner (1869 - 1933), in Portsmouth, Virginia, Jones moved to Providence, Rhode Island at an early age. Her father was the pastor and choir director of the Portsmouth, Virginia African Methodist Episcopal Church and her mother was a soprano in the choir. It is believed that Sissieretta Jones inherited her voice from her mother. She showed her talent as a singer as early as five years old.

Married at age 14, she started voice training in Providence. Although it is a matter of conjecture, most sources state that she continued her studies at the New England Conservatory in Boston. She made her professional debut in Providence, which led to a tour of Europe, South America, and the West Indies with the famous Tennessee Jubilee Singers.

James Weldon Johnson observed that she possessed "the natural voice, the physical figure, the grand air and the engaging personality," characteristic of a great singer. The Washington Post described her voice as: "A phenomenal attraction ... the upper notes of her voice are clear and bell-like...and her low notes are rich and sensuous with a tropical contralto quality...In fact, the compass and quality of her registers surpass the usual limitations and seem to combine the height and depth of both soprano and contralto." Critics concurred that Sissieretta coerced the "musical and theatrical worlds in the United States to accept the Negro in a new image."

Compared to the Italian soprano at the time, Adelina Patti, Jones was pejoratively dubbed the "Black Patti". She vehemently disapproved of the name, yet it stuck and it was used in the name of her vaudeville act. Black Patti's Troubadours was composed of singers and dancers, featuring Sissieretta, which toured the United States and abroad for 20 years. The company's repertoire included minstrel performances. Although Patti considered this aspect of the show demeaning, she sought to improve its overall quality and simultaneously extend her repertoire by including spirituals and arias in her finale.

She performed for several presidents of the United States, the Prince of Wales and the Kaiser and at places like the Chicago World's Fair and Madison Square Garden. She was barred from performing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Despite this, she had many successes, some of which qualify as breakthroughs. (It was not until 1955 that the color bar was lifted at the Metropolitan Opera with a performance by the contralto Marian Anderson.)

Performing for totally white audiences who viewed her as an anomaly, she was heralded as the premier African-American singer of her time. Despite the inequities and indignities she experienced, she forced whites to see blacks as capable, dignified, and talented. She paved the way for black opera singers such as Marian Anderson, Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman, and Kathleen Battle.

Symptomatic of black performers in the past, she had to deal with mismanagement and died penniless in 1933.

Sources: Dictionary of American Negro Biography, edited by Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston; Seattle Republican (Nov. 22, 1901) edition