Lizzie Miles was born on Bourbon Street and she was singing with the New Orleans Jazz bands of King Oliver, Kid Ory and A.J. Piron while she was still a teenager. She worked as a song plugger for Clarence Williams' and A.J. Piron's publishing company and toured the southern vaudeville circuit, worked in a circus and with minstrel shows, before moving to Chicago in the early 1920s. In Chicago she performed with Elgars Creole Orchestra, Freddie Keppard and with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. By 1922 Miles had relocated to New York where she began her recording career in 1922 and played clubs and cabarets with the Sam Wooding Orchestra and with Piron's New Orleans Orchestra. In 1924 she toured Europe and played in Paris at Louis Mitchell's club Chez Mitchell and other venues for the next couple of years. In 1927 she returned to New York where she spent most of the remainder of the 1920s and 1930s. She performed in clubs around the city with numerous acts that included groups led by Fats Waller and Paul Barbarin. In the late 1930s, Miles returned to New Orleans and left show business until the l950s when she resumed her career performing and recording with the Bob Scobey Band until she retired in 1959. Miles died of a heart attack in 1963. Lizzie Miles was the half sister of Blues singer Edna Hicks and trumpet player Herb Morand. Some of Lizzie Miles' records were released under the pseudonyms of Mandy Smith and Jane Howard.

Thanks to Owen Miller for his help with some of the recordings on this page.