Minto Cato

Minto Cato was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. She received her musical education at the Washington Conservatory of Music in Washington D.C., and soon after began teaching piano in public schools in Arkansas and Georgia. In 1919, she opened a music studio in Detroit.

It was in Detroit, in 1922 where she found work in show business at the Temple Theater. She started her career on B. F. Keith vaudeville circuit. In 1923, Cato married the impresario Joe Sheftell. Around 1924, she gave birth to a daughter named Minto Cato Sheftell. Cato performed in many of Sheftell's shows during the 1920s, including the Creole Bronze Revue. Together they also held tour of Europe, Alaska, Canada, and Mexico, which they called Southland Revue.

In 1927, Cato separated from her husband and began working various venues. At Chicago's Regal Theater, she had a solo act in 1929 and worked as an impresario for shows such as the Frivolities of 1928. She also worked as a vaudeville producer in the United States and abroad. From 1920 until 1930, Cato sang with Louis Armstrong in the Blackbirds shows.

From show business she went into opera. In 1936, she performed the role of Azucena in the opera Il trovatore, which she also staged and directed. With the Hippodrome Opera Company in New York, she sang the role of Aida. In 1938, Cato sang the role of Queene in Show Boat and Liza in Gentlemen Unafraid with the Municipal Opera Society of St. Louis. One of her last major performances was in the opera, La traviata in 1947 with the National Negro Opera Company.

By the mid 1940s Cato's career in the United States was in decline because the opera world was not offering roles to African-American performers at that time. She traveled to Europe where she toured as part of a trio and as a solo performer until the early 1950s. Over the years Cato remained active with the National Association of Negro Musicians.

Minto Cato died in New York City in 1979.