Mae Mercer (June 12, 1932 – October 29, 2008) was an American blues singer and actress. She was born in the Temperance Hall community of Edgecombe County. Mercer lived in North Carolina through age 15. She spent eight years in the 1960s singing in a blues bar in Paris, the Blues Club, owned by publisher Maurice Girodias and touring Europe. She eventually came to own and operate a blues club in the city. Mercer returned to the United States in the early 1970s to begin a career as an actress in films and television