Betty Hall Jones

Who was Betty Hall Jones?

Betty Hall Jones, born Betty Hall Bigby, was an American pianist and singer. She was born in Topeka, Kansas.

Jones's father was George Arthur Bigby, a cornetist and leader of a brass band. She learned piano from her uncle in California, where she was raised after her family moved there when she was a child. In 1926, she married a banjoist whose last name was Hall but was divorced by 1936, when she got a job as a backup pianist for Buster Moten in Kansas City. She then returned to Los Angeles to play with Roy Milton through 1942, then joined Luke Jones's trio, with whom she recorded. She married Jasper Jones in the middle of the decade and recorded as Betty Hall Jones in 1947 and 1949 for Atomic Records and Capitol Records. She recorded frequently in the 1950s and worked at the Hotel Sorrento in Seattle, Washington, for seven years. In the 1960s and 1970s she did USO tours in East Asia and toured Australia and Mexico in addition to regular dates in nightclubs on Sunset Boulevard. She toured Sweden and England in the 1980s, and continued performing into the 1990s.

A compilation of her recordings, The Complete Recordings 1947-1954, was issued in 2005.