Biography
Addie Spivey delivered blues vocals in the final years of the 1920s and across the 1930s under the alias Sweet Peas, an assumed name that let store clerks file her discs beside frozen vegetables. Food metaphors for sexual encounters run through classic blues, so an edible stage name for one of its singers hardly seems surprising, though few besides Addie Spivey ever adopted the practice. Listeners routinely mix her up with her better-known sister Victoria Spivey; both women absorbed music early because their father led a string band. Victoria built a larger catalog of recordings issued under her own name after founding one of the earliest musician-owned blues labels, an advantage Addie never enjoyed. The handful of sides and alternate takes Sweet Peas left behind remain murky, with the identities of some accompanying musicians still undocumented. Slight differences appear in how the pseudonym itself was spelled on disc. In 1929 she cut her initial Victor sessions simply as Sweet Peas, material many regard as her strongest thanks to the poised trumpet work of Henry "Red" Allen. Seven years later she recorded for Decca as Sweet Pease Spivey and followed that in 1937 with a Bluebird date credited to Sweet Peas Spivey. Ownership of the masters never passed to her the way Victoria controlled hers; instead the tracks drifted into a legal gray area that permitted their appearance on blues anthologies issued in multiple countries. On such collections Addie Spivey routinely shares space with other female blues singers including Sippie Wallace and Lizzie Miles.
Her low profile also confers a certain cachet among aspiring hipsters, exemplified by a rock musician who told publicists that “admits little has impressed him aside from his Chet Baker, Lil Green, Addie Spivey, and Big Bill Broonzy records.” A more attentive listener might have noticed the chance to link Lil Green with Sweet Peas into the tidy phrase “lil’ green sweet peas,” yet the opportunity went unexploited. Victoria Spivey had one more performing sister, Elton Spivey, who performed as the Za Zu Girl—the “girl” presumably inserted to forestall confusion over the masculine given name. With Elton, Addie, and Victoria all active, one might expect clear attribution, yet further sides possibly by Addie or Elton may hide under the pseudonyms Jane Lucas and Hannah May. Blues researchers debate whether those two names belong to Addie Spivey or to Mozelle Alderson, though most accept that the same singer recorded as both Jane Lucas and Hannah May and also cut 1930 tracks as Kansas City Kitty. CBS files for Vocalion material list Jane Lucas as a Spivey, specifically Victoria—an attribution Victoria herself rejected, despite her usual eagerness to claim credit even for minor involvement. (Her most celebrated discovery was Bob Dylan.) The same files identify the Hannah May who recorded around the same period simply as “Victoria Spivey’s sister,” raising the possibility of an additional credit for Addie, though that claim collides with the notion that Jane and Hannah were identical. If the files are accurate and both sets of tracks were made by one sister, which sister remains unclear. One specialist offered that “aurally she sounds like the Za Zu Girl,” suggesting Elton Spivey might deserve the attribution instead. The Blues Who’s Who states flatly that Hannah May was Addie Spivey, a verdict that has prompted other commentators to threaten to burn their copies in protest and insist the singer was actually Victoria. A practical way to weigh the conflicting claims is to hear the three women together on “I Can’t Last Long,” a 1936 composition by Victoria Spivey that she recorded under the name Jane Lucas and the State Street Four, with Sweet Peas entering on the final verse.
Her low profile also confers a certain cachet among aspiring hipsters, exemplified by a rock musician who told publicists that “admits little has impressed him aside from his Chet Baker, Lil Green, Addie Spivey, and Big Bill Broonzy records.” A more attentive listener might have noticed the chance to link Lil Green with Sweet Peas into the tidy phrase “lil’ green sweet peas,” yet the opportunity went unexploited. Victoria Spivey had one more performing sister, Elton Spivey, who performed as the Za Zu Girl—the “girl” presumably inserted to forestall confusion over the masculine given name. With Elton, Addie, and Victoria all active, one might expect clear attribution, yet further sides possibly by Addie or Elton may hide under the pseudonyms Jane Lucas and Hannah May. Blues researchers debate whether those two names belong to Addie Spivey or to Mozelle Alderson, though most accept that the same singer recorded as both Jane Lucas and Hannah May and also cut 1930 tracks as Kansas City Kitty. CBS files for Vocalion material list Jane Lucas as a Spivey, specifically Victoria—an attribution Victoria herself rejected, despite her usual eagerness to claim credit even for minor involvement. (Her most celebrated discovery was Bob Dylan.) The same files identify the Hannah May who recorded around the same period simply as “Victoria Spivey’s sister,” raising the possibility of an additional credit for Addie, though that claim collides with the notion that Jane and Hannah were identical. If the files are accurate and both sets of tracks were made by one sister, which sister remains unclear. One specialist offered that “aurally she sounds like the Za Zu Girl,” suggesting Elton Spivey might deserve the attribution instead. The Blues Who’s Who states flatly that Hannah May was Addie Spivey, a verdict that has prompted other commentators to threaten to burn their copies in protest and insist the singer was actually Victoria. A practical way to weigh the conflicting claims is to hear the three women together on “I Can’t Last Long,” a 1936 composition by Victoria Spivey that she recorded under the name Jane Lucas and the State Street Four, with Sweet Peas entering on the final verse.