She began working in vaudeville in 1900 in Atlanta, Georgia, and the following year toured South Africa and Europe with Mayme Remington's Pickaninnies.
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.
[4] The couple wrote more than 400 songs over their working life,[6] including "Gimme a Pigfoot (And a Bottle of Beer)" (1933) and "Take Me for a Buggy Ride", both of which were recorded by Bessie Smith, and "Find Me at the Greasy Spoon" and "Prince of Wails" for Fletcher Henderson.
Their own renditions included the diverse "Come on Coot, Do That Thing" (1925), "Dem Socks Dat My Pappy Wore," and "Throat Cutting Blues" (which remains unreleased).
[7] In December 1948, Record Changer magazine reported that Grant and Wilson had opened a new show in Newark, New Jersey, "an old time revue called 'Holiday in Blues.'"
[8] According to blues archivists Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc, Grant (Leola B. Johnson) died in Riverside County, California, in 1970, aged 77.