The Real Baby Esther Lee Jones Story

The real Baby Esther Lee Jones story about Chicago's forgotten African-American night club singer Baby Esther, who is better known today as Betty Boop's black grandmother. Esther Jones started her career as Li'l Esther and Baby Esther and Little Esther and had been performing since the early 1920s under the management of Lou Bolton, a white Russian-American agent. It's often noted that she was Betty Boop, but that is not true, she was more like the black Shirley Temple. The main thing appropriated into Helen Kane's act was Esther Jones' scat singing technique, which was later incorporated into the Betty Boop character. Helen Kane had ringside seats with her then agent Tony Shayne, who was also agent for Esther Jones in 1928. It's usually hidden that Shayne was Esther Jones' manager too, a lot of people like to try and whitewash black history, particularly white historians. So if you have read the story 100%, you'll understand where the scat singing routes lay, and it isn't too hard to put two and two together, for those who are not biased or racist. If someone saw someone performing live, and then suddenly started to scat sing, it makes the person who they copied, originator. Esther was more of a Florence Mills impersonator, and when she toured Paris and Europe was compared to Josephine Baker, sadly the real Esther Jones didn't make much of an impact in the United States. The one true originator of scat singing is actually Gertrude Saunders, who Florence Mills replaced in a all-black musical. Florence Mills was Esther's idol and had died in 1927, and in 1928, Esther started impersonating Mills. The great Florence Mills had a lot of "Baby" impersonators, because Florence Mills started her career as Baby Florence and Baby Flo, do some research, and you'll learn a great deal about the real Esther Jones, and what inspired her and also how she experienced a bit of racism in Sweden, but everywhere else was a sensation, and bypassed a lot of racism, as she was considered a star everywhere she went in Europe.