[3] She attended Selma University, in Alabama, before moving to New York City at the age of twenty around 1915.
[5] She began her career as a vaudeville and minstrel entertainer who performed as a comedian, dancer, actress, and singer in traveling shows.
Also in 1922, billed as the "southern nightingale," Smith won first place and a silver cup in a blues singing contest in which she sang her own composition, "Trixie's Blues",[10] competing against Alice Leslie Carter, Daisy Martin and Lucille Hegamin, at the Inter-Manhattan Casino in New York, sponsored by the dancer Irene Castle.
[11] She is best remembered for "Railroad Blues" (1925),[7] which features one of her most inspired vocal performances on record, and "The World Is Jazz Crazy and So Am I" (1925).
Smith was a polished performer, and her records include several outstanding examples of the blues, on which she is accompanied by artists such as James P. Johnson, and Freddie Keppard.
In 1939 she cut "No Good Man" with a band including Red Allen and Barney Bigard.