Ina Ray Hutton’s birth name was Odessa Cowen, born March 13, 1916, Chicago, Illinois. Ina Ray was of mixed-race heritage, being identified as “mulatto” on the 1920 census and “negro” on the 1930 census, though you would be hard pressed to pick that she was of mixed race descent. . Both her parents were considered black, as was she, by legal definitions of the time. Hutton grew up in the Chicago home of her maternal grandparents, along with her mother and younger stepsister, June, who later went on to fame as vocalist June Hutton. The girls’ mother was a musician who used the stage name Marvel Williams. Ina Ray’s father, Odie Cowen, was June’s legal father but not her biological father. Cowen and Williams had separated by the time of June’s birth but were still married. Marvel remarried in 1922 to fellow musician Raymond Whitsett. By the mid-1930s, Ina Ray, June, and their mother were identifying as white on public records, as was their father Odie.
Ina Ray began singing and dancing at the age of eight. She worked on Broadway during the early 1930s, appearing in the Ziegfeld Follies and the George White Scandals, before being asked in 1934 by booking agent Irving Mills to front an all-girl orchestra.
Ina Ray was the most prominent female bandleader of the swing era with her all-girl orchestra, the Melodears. Her glamorous looks and seductive stage persona earned her the nickname the “Blonde Bombshell of Rhythm.”
Quite unusual for its time, the Melodears quickly made a name for themselves, appearing in three Paramount musical shorts in 1935, but by the late 1930s the act had lost its novelty. June joined the band as a vocalist in 1937, singing under the name Elaine Merritt both solo and as part of the Winstead’s vocal trio. Ina Ray herself also sang.
Hutton disbanded the Melodears in mid-1939 and married agent Charles Doerwald that July. She began rehearsing an all-male orchestra later that year, telling Down Beat magazine that she was “through with all this flash and glamour stuff” and wanted a band that would “attract attention by its music and nothing else.” The new group made its debut in spring 1940, impressing both critics and audiences. Stuart Foster served as male vocalist, while Ina Ray handled female vocals. The early orchestra also featured the Kim Loo Sisters, a Chinese-American trio. The band recorded on Okeh in 1940 and 1941 and on Hit in 1941 and 1942.
In February 1942, Ina Ray Hutton hired sax player and arranger George Paxton, to whom she reportedly offered fifty percent of her profits to join the band. Paxton played a large part in the orchestra’s continuing success, becoming musical director and de facto leader, leaving Hutton to front the band. Paxton left in May 1944 to form his own group, and Hutton temporarily disbanded in August, citing a need to rest. She returned to the bandstand in December. Foster again served as male vocalist but left in February 1945 for Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra.
Difficulties with her booking office forced Hutton to disband in mid-1945. After taking her case to the musicians’ union, she put together a new outfit in December, preparing for a February 1946 debut. She disbanded again in December 1946 but had put together a new orchestra by August 1948, which lasted at least through October.
Later Years
In mid-1947, Hutton became involved in a scandal when the wife of bandleader Randy Brooks filed for separation and accused Hutton of having an affair with her husband. Hutton and Brooks married in April 1949 and settled on the West Coast, where she formed a new all-girl orchestra which appeared on a regional television program from 1950 to 1955, with a brief network run in 1956. She and Brooks divorced at some point after 1954. She married twice more, to Michael Anter in 1958 and John Curtis in 1963.
Ina Ray Hutton retired from music in 1968 and passed away in 1984, at age 67, of complications from diabetes in Ventura, California
Appetizers
