Born Elizabeth Mary Landreaux in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans in 1895, Lizzie Miles grew up speaking Louisiana Creole, sang in the Catholic church, and as a teenager performed at dances with King Oliver and Bunk Johnson. This deep dive follows her 50-year survival story through segregated minstrel circuits, the 1918 flu pandemic that killed her bandleader husband, the race records era, Parisian clubs, and a triumphant Dixieland revival before she walked away to live like a nun.

We examine why minstrel and circus tours were the only commercial pipeline available to a Black performer in the 1910s South, how OKeh Records boxed her in as a blues singer in 1922 despite her range in jazz, pop, and French cabaret, and the 1928 Conqueror Records mystery of a singer credited as Miss Frankie. We cover her recordings with Jelly Roll Morton, the provocative My Man o’ War, a severe 1930s illness, and a comeback built on the respect of fellow musicians.

• How Louisiana Creole blends French vocabulary with West African grammar
• Why the pandemic dismantled the touring economy and pushed her north to Chicago and New York
• High-fidelity 1950s albums for Cook, Capitol, and Verve, plus a Las Vegas residency and the 1958 Monterey Jazz Festival
• Her 1959 decision to devote her life to faith with the Sisters of the Holy Family
• Woody Allen’s use of her A Good Man Is Hard to Find in the 2013 film Blue Jasmine