Billie Pierce

In the 1960s and 1970s, the pianist and singer’s widespread travels with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, joined by her spouse, trumpeter De De Pierce, established her among the most frequently encountered artists across the New Orleans jazz tradition. Her family history underscores a marked independence: although her parents and seven sisters all performed on piano, the artist who became known as Billie Pierce elected to instruct herself on the keyboard. Born Wilhelmina Goodson, the family name emerged as a defining presence in classic blues piano during the Gulf Coast’s Roaring Twenties heyday.

Billing herself as Billie Goodson early in that decade, she supplied piano accompaniment to classic blues empress Bessie Smith at a Pensacola theater and performed with groups led by Alphonse Picou, Emile Barnes, and George Lewis. Sister Ida Goodson devoted most of her career to piano work in the Pensacola vicinity, while Sadie Goodson, like Billie, gravitated toward the greater activity of New Orleans. The siblings regularly appeared in honky tonks, among which Preservation Hall attained lasting prominence and supported an ensemble that has continued as a leading exponent of the historic New Orleans small combo style.

The Blue Jay Club nevertheless proved most consequential for Goodson and Pierce. There, in the mid ’30s, trumpeter and vocalist De De Pierce first met Billie Goodson; the two formed a romantic partnership and assembled a group that became the house band at Luthjen’s Dance Hall, the location of notable live recordings in the ’50s. This artist should not be mistaken for reed player Billy Pierce, whose recording activity began in the ’70s.