Biography
Born around 1900, possibly in Kansas City, Missouri, Beaman belonged to the earliest wave of women who cut blues records. Scant biographical information survives, though records confirm that Lottie Kimbrough was her birth name and that she wed William Beaman during the early 1920s. Promoters marketed her as “The Kansas City Butterball,” a nod to the bars and taverns where she had already performed while still a teenager. From 1924 through 1929 she committed sides to wax in Kansas, Chicago, and Richmond, Indiana, occasionally joined by brother Sylvester Kimbrough or by the whistler and singer Winston Holmes. Although her vocal instrument was never considered exceptional, she earned respect as a “moaner” whose performances conveyed a distinctive depth of despair. The same recordings later appeared under the pseudonyms Jennie Brooks, Lottie Brown, Clara Cary, Lottie Everson, Martha Johnson, Lena Kimbrough, and Mae Moran.