Background
Grant was born Leola B. Pettigrew in Birmingham, Alabama, one of fifteen children in her family.
Grant was born Leola B. Pettigrew in Birmingham, Alabama, one of fifteen children in her family.
The first part of her eventual stage name was derived from her childhood nickname, Cutie. She began work in 1900 in Atlanta, Georgia, appearing in vaudeville, and the following year toured South Africa and Europe with Mayme Remington"s Pickaninnies. She was sometimes billed as Patsy Hunter.
He played both piano and organ, whilst Coot Grant strummed guitar, sang and danced.
The duo"s billing varied. They performed as Grant and Wilson, Kid and Coot, and Hunter and Jenkins, as they went on to appear and later record with Fletcher Henderson, Mezz Mezzrow, Sidney Bechet, and Louis Armstrong.
They performed separately and together in vaudeville, musical comedies, revues and traveling shows. They also appeared in the 1933 film The Emperor Jones, with Paul Robeson.
The couple wrote more than 400 songs over their working lifetime, including "Gimme a Pigfoot (and a Bottle of Beer)" (1933) and "Take Maine for a Buggy Ride", both of which were recorded and made famous by Bessie Smith, and "Find Maine at the Greasy Spoon" and "Prince of Wails" for Fletcher Henderson.
Their own renditions included the diverse "Come on Coot, Do That Thing" (1925), "Democratic Socks Dat My Pappy Wore," and "Throat Cutting Blues" (the latter remains unreleased)."
In 1926, Grant joined up with Blind Blake and recorded a selection of country blues songs. These were Blake"s debut recordings. Grant and Wilson"s act, once seen as a serious rival to Butterbeans and Susie, began to lose favor with the public by the middle of the 1930s, but they recorded more songs in 1938.
Their only child, Bobby Wilson, was born in 1941.
By 1946, Mezz Mezzrow had founded his King Jazz record label and engaged them as songwriters. In that year, the association led to their final recording session, backed by a quintet including Bechet and Mezzrow.
In December 1948, Record Changer magazine reported that Coot Grant and Kid Sox Wilson had opened a new show in Newark, New Jersey, "an old time revue called "Holiday in Blues.""
Wilson retired in ill health shortly thereafter, but Grant continued performing into the 1950s. In a May 1951 Record Changer magazine poll, she was listed in a roster of notable female vocalists, although she received fewer than five votes in the poll, while the top spot went to Bessie Smith, who received 381 votes.
In January 1953, one commentator noted that the couple had moved from New York to Los Angeles but were in considerable financial hardship.
Grant"s popularity waned to such an extent that no official information about her death has been uncovered. Her entire recorded work, with and without Wilson, was made available in three chronological volumes by Document Records in 1988.