Little is known about her family background except that she may have been a niece of the bandleader and saxophonist Les Hite.
[2] Around 1915 she moved to Chicago, where she sang at the Panama Club, often with such performers as Alberta Hunter, Cora Green, and Florence Mills.
[2][3] In 1919 she returned to New York City, where she worked in cabarets,[2] singing at many nightspots, including Barron Wilkin's Astoria Cafe and Pod's and Jerry's.
[2] The blues writer Derrick Stewart-Baxter wrote in 1970 that "according to Frankie "Half Pint" Jaxon, [Hite] was a long, tall woman, who flavored her act with some extremely risqué songs".
[5] James P. Johnson considered Hite "one of the greatest cabaret singers of all time".