Helen Humes was a short, buxom woman with twinkling eyes and a broad, warm smile. She had a motherly appearance even when she was singing the double entendre lyrics of such songs as ''He May Be Your Man but He Comes to See Me Sometimes'' and ''The Million Dollar Secret,'' which made up part of her repertory. She was usually thought of as a blues singer, but Miss Humes preferred ''pretty songs, torch songs.''
Swell Dames singing the blues
Our Swell Dames singing the blues.
Swell Dames doing the Boogie Woogie
Our Swell Dames doing the Boogie Woogie.
Our Swell Dames chirping out some sweet Valentine tunes.
Fans of female vocalists of the ’50s inevitably bemoan the lack of respect given to one of the true greats. Frances Faye, like Peggy Lee, was a dishy, somewhat off-kilter blonde who could scribble out a...
Della Reese
Della Reese, born Delloresse Patricia Early on July 6, 1931 in the Black Bottom neighborhood of Detroit, Michigan, a blues and gospel singer and actress.
n the course of a remarkably long career, with successes from the 1920s all the way into the 1970s, Dorothy Fields wrote some of the most enduring lyrics of the golden age of the American...
Blanche Calloway was a popular singer and bandleader during the 1930s. She studied music at Morgan State College before dropping out to pursue a career in show business. Her big break came in 1923 when...
Dorothy Fields wrote songs for a wide variety of musicals that became classics of American culture, from “Hey Big Spender” to “A Fine Romance” and “The Way You Look Tonight,” which won an Academy Award...
Singer Beverly Kenney remains one of jazz’s great tragedies — an exquisitely nuanced stylist whose sophisticated phrasing perfectly complemented the cool jazz sensibilities of the late ’50s, she committed suicide at the peak of her...