[2] Wilson was born in Fort Worth, Texas, United States, the youngest in a family of six children.

Her mother was a maid, her father was self-employed, and Wilson grew up picking and chopping cotton - work she later described as hot and unpleasant.

[3][5] The following year, Wilson moved to Chicago, where she became a church choir director and sang gospel.

King's Blues Club, she was given a weekly residency there, and when he later opened a restaurant, Itta Bena, she also became a regular performer there.

[7] As Wilson's career developed, she toured the United States and internationally, and performed at blues and jazz festivals in Europe, Asia and New Zealand.

[3] In the 1980s, Wilson spent some years living in Los Angeles and performed with Joan Rivers and Sharon Gless.

Two, Cake Walking Babies (1988) and Outstanding In Their Field (1989) were recorded with the Hot Cotton Jazz Band.

[8] Wilson appeared in several films, including The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), The Chamber (1996), Cookie's Fortune (1999) and Black Snake Moan (2006) as well as in television commercials.

[3] In 2006, Wilson received the Memphis Sound Award for Best Entertainer;[11] in 2010, she was inducted into the Black Business Directory's African-American Hall of Fame.