Ada Jones was born in Lancashire, England on June 1, 1873. Her family moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania when she was 6 years old. She is the first known female to record songs for the recently invented phonograph. 1894 she recorded songs for the North American Phonograph Company, but they went out of business shortly after. In November of 1899 Thomas Edison was searching for people that he could film with his latest invention, and he found Ada in the Huber Museum in New York City. At the museum, singers, magicians and other performers staged their acts, and patrons paid a dime to watch their performance. Edison hired her to sing some illustrated songs for his new motion picture invention, the Edison Projectascope. In 1905 both Thomas Edison and the new Victor company released recorded songs from Ada, and her popularity on the new wax cylinders and later 78rpm records grew until she was a nationally known singer. She died of kidney failure May 22, 1922 at the age of 48 while on a singing tour in North Carolina and was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Jimbo Note: Ada Jones was the first female recording 'star' after the invention of the phonograph by Thomas Edison, and she recorded for him and other labels. Because of this she is historically important to the development of recorded music. Most of her songs are designed to be humorous, but by today's standards some are very controversial because of her use of slang terms for African Americans and Irish Americans and other nationalities that is definately offensive. I thought long and hard about whether to include her music, and have decided that to ignore the bigotry of our ancestors is to risk returning bigoted attitudes.