Like so many of the early female Blues recording artists Viola McCoy's roots were in vaudeville and musical theatre. She moved to New York sometime in the early 1920s and worked as a caberet singer. She graduated to musical theatre sometime around 1922 and seemed to constantly be appearing in different musical revues in the New York area until the mid-1930s. She seems to have left show bussiness some time around 1938.

Viola McCoy's recordings were released under quite a few different pseudonyms. She was Amanda Brown on the Columbia, Perfect and Pathe labels. She was called Daisy Cliff on Guardsman label. On the Oriole and Domino labels she was Clara White or Bessie Williams and she was Gladys White on the Variety label, Fannie Johnson on Cameo and Susan Williams on the Lincoln label.