0
Ada Reeve
Ada Reeve
British actor and singer
1
Bessie Bonehill
Bessie Bonehill
English vaudeville performer
2
Ma Rainey
Ma Rainey
African-American blues singer
3
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith
American blues singer
4
Jenny Hill
Jenny Hill
British music hall performer
5
Marie Lloyd
Marie Lloyd
English singer, comedian and actress (1870–1922)
6
Mahalia Jackson
Mahalia Jackson
American gospel singer
7
Marie Studholme
Marie Studholme
British actress
8
Dan Leno
Dan Leno
English music hall singer; comedian
9
Little Tich
Little Tich
English music hall comedian
10
Felice and Boudleaux Bryant
Felice and Boudleaux Bryant
American wife and husband country music and pop songwriting team
11
Millie Small
Millie Small
singer-songwriter
12
Mrs Caulfield
Mrs Caulfield
English music hall singer active in the 1850s and 1860s
13
Sam Cooke
Sam Cooke
American recording artist; singer-songwriter and entrepreneur
14
Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters
American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress
15
Dorothy Donegan
Dorothy Donegan
American jazz pianist
16
Duffy Bishop
Duffy Bishop
American electric blues singer and songwriter
17
Julie Andrews
Julie Andrews
British actress, singer, dancer and author
18
Vesta Tilley
Vesta Tilley
English music hall performer and male impersonator
19
Nina Simone
Nina Simone
American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist
20
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
American jazz singer
21
Marie Dainton
Marie Dainton
British opera singer (1881-1938)
22
Adelaide Hall
Adelaide Hall
American-born UK-based jazz singer and entertainer
23
Juanita Hall
Juanita Hall
American musical theatre and film actress; singer, recording artist (1901-1968)
24
Carlos Gardel
Carlos Gardel
Argentinian singer, songwriter, actor; the most prominent figure in the history of tango
25
Diana Ross
Diana Ross
American vocalist, music artist and actress
26
Queen Latifah
Queen Latifah
American musician and actress
27
Victoria Monks
Victoria Monks
British Musical Hall singer
28
Hannah Chaplin
Hannah Chaplin
stage and musical actress
29
Kate Carney
Kate Carney
Music hall entertainer, singer, theatre operator
30
Ida Cox
Ida Cox
African American singer and vaudeville performer
31
Nelly Power
Nelly Power
British singer
Intro
Genres

Bessie Wentworth (born Elizabeth Mary Andrews, 20 March 1873 – 6 January 1901) was an English music hall singer and comic entertainer.

She was born in Lambeth, London, where her mother ran a boarding house for theatrical performers. After leaving school, she worked as a clerk before joining Jack Sheppard's troupe in 1891. She became a principal boy in pantomimes, and a singer of boy roles in operettas, before developing a solo act in music halls. Although she did not use blackface, she sang plantation songs and coon songs, dressed as a young man wearing a stereotypical costume of open-necked shirt, striped pantaloons, and a large straw hat. One of her most successful songs was "Looking for a Coon Like Me", written by George Le Brunn with lyrics by John Harrington.

She was very successful in the 1890s, and a popular subject of photographs and postcards of her in masculine poses. She was portrayed in the costume of a plantation worker in a lithograph by Toulouse-Lautrec, probably from a visit he made to London in 1896. Her last appearance, at the top of the bill, was in December 1900.

Known as a keen cyclist, she was planning to marry and run a public house with her husband, but died aged 27, in Lambeth, from typhoid fever.