When Was Helen Humes Born?

Parker Fishel

At a recent Helen Humes-focused Zoom listening session hosted by the Worcester Hot Club, there was excellent music to be heard from across her long performing career.

Digging into some of Humes’s earliest recordings, made with the blues guitarist Sylvester Weaver in 1927 for Okeh, there was some conversation about whether the year Humes gave for her birth (1913) was correct or a later historical revision on her part. The importance of the question has to do with the fact that if 1913 is correct, she would have been just 14 at the time of those initial recordings! Precocious indeed.

Although good manners suggest it improper to reveal a woman’s age, Humes shuffled off this mortal coil nearly forty years ago, so hopefully she will not hold it against us. A check of the 1910 census in Louisville, Kentucky provides us with a listing for “Hellen Humes,” daughter of John H. and Emma Humes. Her birth year is given as 1909. The census was taken April 27-28, 1910 and Helen’s age is listed as 10/12 months, suggesting that her given month and day of birth (June 23rd) is likely correct. A birth certificate would be necessary to confirm. But pending that, the current best date of birth for Helen Humes is June 23, 1909.