Blues singer and banjolele player. In the mid-1930s worked as dancer/musician locally with Will Batts and others in the Memphis area. She is only to be heard on private recordings: with Will Batts' Novelty Band in 1954 (released on Flyright), and with Gus Cannon and Will Shade in 1961 (on Document and Wolf). Recordings made by Swedish radio in 1964 has never been aired or released.
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Born June 10, 1907 in Memphis, Tennessee, died October 14, 1992 in the same city. An early start in music led Little Laura Dukes to a lifetime of involvement with entertainment in Memphis. Her father had been a drummer with W.C. Handy’s band, but it was a less sophisticated idiom that Dukes chose, playing blues with the jug bands for which that city is so well known. She sang and played banjo and ukelele with the Will Batts Novelty Band, and although they made two recordings in the early 50s, these were not issued until 20 years later. She made some more records with the revival of interest in blues and related music in the 70s, and also appeared in a BBC Television series. As late as the 80s, she was still performing in Memphis, at the Blues Alley club, set up to showcase the city’s blues talent.
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Laura Ella Dukes (b. June 10, 1907 in Memphis, TN, d. October 10 or 14, 1992 in Memphis, TN), sometimes credited as Little Laura Dukes, was an American blues singer, dancer, and mandolin, banjo and ukulele player. She performed and recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, from the 1920s to the 1980s.
She was born Laura Ella Smith in North Memphis, where her father had been a drummer in W. C. Handy's band. He took her as a young child to theaters and taverns, where she began performing and later worked as a singer and dancer. She was often billed as "Little Laura" or "Little Bit", an allusion to her 4'7" height. She met blues singer Robert McCollum, later known as Robert Nighthawk, in 1933, and began appearing with him as a duo. After initially learning guitar, she later took up the banjo, ukulele and mandolin. She first recorded in 1934, playing mandolin on recordings made in Chicago by the Memphis Jug Band, featuring Will Shade, for OKeh Records. She also made recordings in the early 1950s with the Will Batts band, which were released some twenty years later, and performed with the Batts band intermittently. Later in the 1950s, she recorded several tracks with Shade and Gus Cannon, and in 1972 — as Little Laura Dukes — she recorded tracks that were first released on the Italian albums, Blues Oggi and Tennessee Blues Vol.1. From the late 1950s, she mainly performed in Dixieland groups at parties and festivals, becoming a favorite with white audiences in Memphis. In 1976 she appeared in a BBC television series, The Devil's Music, and continued to perform in clubs in Memphis in the 1980s.
She died in 1992 at the age of 85.