Heritage & Legacy: “Diamond Teeth” Mary Smith McClain

West Virginia Music Hall of Fame, Class of 2011

“West Virginia’s Queen of the Blues”

On a warm, spring night in 1915, a brave thirteen year old girl, disguised as a boy, hopped a westbound train in Huntington, West Virginia, headed for Tennessee. Young Mary Smith was intent on escaping an abusive step-mother, and pursuing her dreams of being a singer, like her older half sister, Bessie Smith. Yes, that Bessie Smith, who was twenty-one at the time, and finding success in Memphis and Chattanooga. Mary hopped that train hoping to have a career in show business. It worked out.

And what a career it turned out to be spanning 85 years, from 1915-2000. In her expansive time as an entertainer Mary performed at The Cotton Club, The Apollo Theatre, Carnegie Hall and in 1980 performed for President Ronald Reagan at the White House. She performed with some of the biggest entertainers of her time including Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Ray Charles, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughn and Nat King Cole.

Mary Smith was born in Huntington, WV on August 27, 1902. As stated, by the time she was thirteen years old she decided to hop that fateful train, and try her luck on the road, rather than stay in Huntington and get another beating at the hands of her fourth step-mother. To be permitted to travel by herself, she had to disguise herself as a boy.

She ended up near Memphis and found work as a singer and an acrobat with a circus. Smith later found jobs as a chorus girl in various minstrel shows and traveling medicine shows throughout the south and midwest. These troupes included C. Miller’s Brown Skin Models, the Davis S. Bell Medicine Show, and the F.S. Walcott’s Rabbit Foot Minstrels. By this time she had acquired the nickname “Walking Mary” for her habit of walking out on unscrupulous promoters.

From time to time she did get to work with her sister, Bessie Smith. Sadly, she was present at Bessie Smith’s death in 1937 when she died in a hospital waiting room after a car crash near Memphis.

The Lady With The Million Dollar Smile

In the 1940’s, Mary had eight diamonds from a bracelet set in her front teeth, creating a dazzling stage effect and giving her a new nickname, “Diamond Teeth Mary”. This new stage character became a big hit on the medicine show circuit.

In Levon Helm’s autobiography, This Wheel’s On Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band, he recalls seeing “Diamond Teeth Mary” at medicine shows in the late 1940’s near his home in Arkansas. He recalls:

“Our favorite act was ‘The Lady With The Million Dollar Smile’. F.S. Walcott’s big featured singer, who’d come on in the third quarter of the show. She was an armful. She wore bright dresses and had all her teeth filled with diamonds! She sang all those real get-down songs like ‘Shake a Hand’. Even later in the show she would come back for the Midnight Ramble, which cost a dollar more and was kind of a hootchy-kootchy show with raunchy lyrics and a big beat.”

The Band’s lyricist, Robbie Robertson later turned this story into the song “WS Walcott’s Medicine Show”, which appeared on The Band’s third album, Stage Fright. Here’s the verse describing “Diamond Teeth Mary”, in which Robbertson decided to change her name and the initials of the medicine show.

Gonna see Miss Brer Foxhole she’s got diamonds in her teeth

She is real gold down underneath

She’s a rock and roll singer and a true dead ringer

For something like you ain’t never seen

Once you get it

You can’t forget it

W.S. Walcott Medicine Show

~Robbie Robertson.

Throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s Mary would travel the world doing hundreds of shows for the USO, entertaining American troops with her mix of blues and gospel music.

In 1960 she settled in Bradenton, FL, and in 1964 married her second husband, Clifford McClain. Her new husband didn’t want her to sing the blues, but did encourage her to sing gospel music with churches in the Bradenton area. McClain quickly became a star gospel performer.

The Smithsonian Institution’s Festival of American Folklife in Washington DC tracked her down and brought her renewed national exposure, as she played the festival throughout the 1980s. It was during this time she was invited to play for Ronald Reagan at the White House.

Back in Florida she was also building an audience and became a regular performer at the Florida Folk Festival. In 1986 she became one of the first recipients of the Florida Folk Heritage Award.

She finally got to record her first album in 1993 when Big Boss Records released the sassy and swinging If I Can’t Sell It, I’m Gonna Sit on It. She played blues festivals throughout Europe in the 1990s until shortly before her death on April 4, 2000, at the age of 97.

As per her wishes, her ashes were spread at Huntington’s Heritage Station, along the railroad tracks, where she hopped that train in 1915 to follow her dreams. A plaque now stands on the spot and the City of Huntington renamed 11th Street by the old train depot “Diamond Teeth Mary Way”. Since 2009 the Diamond Teeth Mary Blues Festival has been held each August at the Heritage Station.