Butterbeans & Susie

Jodie "Butterbeans" Edwards and Susie Hawthorne were never household names -- at least not in many white households -- but from the early 1920s through the '50s, they were one of the top comedic music acts on the Black vaudeville circuit, from New York to Chicago to Detroit. Working as Butterbeans & Susie, they were masters of comic timing and the double-entendre in their interaction. In her stage and recorded persona, Hawthorne was the model for dozens of other dominant but frustrated wives throughout the history of stage and recorded entertainment in the 20th century, while ...