With a career spanning over five decades, she is best remembered for her powerful vocals, and for guesting alongside other prominent musical acts.
She was raised by her aunts and had her first experience as a singer at Lake Charles Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, where her grandfather was a bishop.
Admired for the quality and intensity of her religious singing, she became part of a vocal trio, and while in high school was heard and praised by bandleader Louis Jordan.
Originally working as Little Mickey Champion, she soon lead an active career in the cities bustling nightclub scene.
As her notoriety for her powerful vocalizing without the use of any microphones grew, Champion expanded her performing outside Los Angeles alongside other musical acts such as T-Bone Walker, Little Esther Phillips, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, and Jackie Wilson in the late 1940s and early 1950s.