Dolly Kay

Singing.

Dolly Kay sings like a cabaretteur, meaning she has no voice. She also sings muchly like Sophie Tucker, and employs the same type of numbers, rags and shimmies, with the preference given to the shimmy. Her best delivered number was "Alcoholic Blues," and it got her a lot, although an over-zealous collection of friends in a box spoiled the applause for the turn. These friends are sometimes awful. Opening, with a young man at a piano, Miss Kay told about herself in verse that sounded as though it had been written while a party sat around a table in a restaurant. One line read: "I spent all my dough for this evening gown," pointing to the dress worn by her. Even that did not tell how much she had spent. A Dixie song, "Good Man Is Hard to Find," and a couple of shimmies were the others. In "Prohibition Blues," when Miss Kay got to "goodbye forever," she made no pretense of taking the "forever." Miss Kay may do while the shimmy thing is on. Were it not for that she would be called a robust rag singer, formerly known as a "coon shouter," out of the ranks of "whom in those days are now some of the best rag and jazz singers in vaudeville. This girl might, do better, however, by adopting a method of delivery of her own. Particularly is that true just at present (for Miss Kay and others), when it is not the singer, voice or method that is getting them over merely the lyrics and entailed movements of the shimmy songs.

Variety, 54:6 (04/04/1919)