Bertha "Chippie" Hill born 15 March 1905

Hill was born in Charleston, South Carolina, one of sixteen children. The family moved to New York in 1915. She began her career as a dancer in Harlem and by 1919 was working with Ethel Waters. At this young age, during a stint at Leroy's, a noted New York nightclub, Hill was nicknamed "Chippie" because of her youth and small size. She also performed with Ma Rainey as part of the Rabbit Foot Minstrels. She later established her own song and dance act and toured on the TOBA circuit in the early 1920s. About 1925, she settled in Chicago, where she worked at various venues with King Oliver's Jazz Band. 

The majority of Bertha Chippie Hill's records were made for the General Phonograph Corporation and later for the Okeh Phonograph Corporation, issued on their Okeh label between 1925 and 1929. Consequently, the company's A. and R. man in Chicago, Richard M. Jones, influenced the choice of material Chippie Hill was to record, the majority of the songs being written by him. 

Fortunately, he wrote some excellent blues and was a fine pianist too, being present on many her recordings. Ten recordings also feature the remarkable cornet playing of Louis Armstrong including "Pratt City Blues", "Low Land Blues" and "Kid Man Blues" in 1925 and "Georgia Man" and "Trouble in Mind" in 1926. 

Anyone seeking insights about blues, jazz, and human nature needs to savour Armstrong's interactions with Bertha "Chippie" Hill. She is also backed by Richard M. Jones' Jazz Wizards (with clarinettist Artie Starks doing his best to complement her passionate delivery); guitarist Lonnie Johnson, who recorded during this period with artists as diverse as Duke Ellington, Texas Alexander, and Eddie Lang; guitarist Scrapper Blackwell and pianist Leroy Carr; pianist and songwriter Georgia Tom (Thomas A. Dorsey); and guitarist Tampa Red (Hudson Whittaker) and bassist Bill Johnson of New Orleans. The gravitational pull of the blues is nicely counterweighted by the 1929 recording of"Non-Skid Tread," an amusing study in hokum for kazoo and continuo with "Scrapper" Blackwell and the Two Roys, with Leroy Carr on piano. 

In the 1930s she retired from singing to raise her seven children. Hill occasionally sang during the next 15 years (including with Jimmie Noone) but mostly worked outside of music. She was rediscovered by writer Rudi Blesh in 1946, working in a bakery. Appearances on Blesh's This Is Jazz radio series resulted in her coming back to the music scene, performing at the Village Vanguard, Jimmy Ryan's and even appearing at Carnegie Hall in 1948 with Kid Ory. She also sang at the Paris Jazz Festival, and worked with Art Hodes in Chicago.

 At the age of 45, she was back in prime form in 1950, when she was struck and killed by a hit and run driver in New York City in 1950. She is buried at the Lincoln Cemetery, Blue Island, Illinois. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, Document Record notes & AllMusic)