Women of Mystery

Ojai Sam

Ojai Sam

Staff member
Women of Mystery.jpg

In the course of researching one of my listening projects, I recently stumbled across a treasure trove of albums by obscure female vocalists of the 50's and 60's. These records are too good not to share, so here is our latest thread. Feel free to add your own secret singers as we go.

Naturally there is a Spotify playlist:

 
Marilyn Moore - Moody (Bethlehem 1957)

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last.fm scrobbles: 4,094

AMG tells us:

b. 16 June 1931, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, d. March 1992, Florida, USA. Born into a show business family, Moore began performing at the age of three, singing and dancing in the finale of her family’s vaudeville act. As a teenager, she decided to concentrate on singing and soon turned to jazz, working in clubs in Oklahoma City and Chicago. In 1949 she sang with Woody Herman, then with Charlie Ventura and by the early 50s had settled in New York. She sang with various groups, including those led by Ray McKinley, Boyd Raeburn and Al Cohn, whom she married in 1953. They had two children, Lisa and Joe Cohn (now a leading jazz guitarist), and Moore’s life became focused upon her home and family. In 1957, however, she was invited to record for Bethlehem and the resulting album, on which she is backed by Cohn, Joe Wilder, Don Abney, Barry Galbraith and other leading jazzmen, attracted a great deal of interest. The following year, she was cast in a jazz show, Oh Captain!, recorded by MGM Records in which Coleman Hawkins, Art Farmer, Oscar Pettiford and Harry ‘Sweets’ Edison also appeared. Soon afterwards, Moore and Cohn were divorced and once again she was tied to home-making and family-raising. Despite a deep desire to go back to professional singing and make more records, she never returned.

Marilyn's disappearance from the recording studio is our loss. Her style admittedly owes a great deal to Billie Holiday, but to me that is a feature, not a bug. Far from being offended, Lady Day reportedly befriended Moody Marilyn.

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Alice Darr - I Only Know How To Cry (1962)

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last.fm scrobbles: 595

Not much is known about Alice. JazzWax has some information here and here. These intimate recordings, accompanied superbly by the guitar of Mundell Lowe and bass of George Duvivier, have a late night feel that is brutal in its honesty and emotional power.

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Sallie Blair - Squeeze Me (Bethlehem 1957)

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last.fm scrobbles: 859

"Jazz, Blues, Female Vocalists, and More", a sadly defunct blog, tells us:

Sallie Blair began life as Sallie Bolling Mason in Baltimore. She sort of drifted into music as a child -she notes "I guess the desire to sing was always with me". By the time she was ready to graduate from high school, she had already racked up some experience singing with local bands. Her first true professional break came when Johnny Otis featured her with his band. Subsequently, she sang with the aggregations of Illinois Jacquet and Duke Ellington. Deciding upon a solo career, Sallie landed a spot on the "Chance of a Lifetime" TV show, winning the program's thousand dollar prize several weeks in sucession. The feat landed her an engagement at the Vanity Fair in Miami, where her original two-week booking was quickly extend to nearly 5 months. From Vanity Fair, she went on to New York's Cafe Society and then the plush Boulevard in Queens. Cab Calloway signed her for his "Cotton Club Revue" and she spent seven months with that company in Miami Beach, several more in Vegas, with a sensational single engagement at Hollywood's Mocambo sandwiched in between. By the time she bowed out of "Cotton Club" in the spring of 1957, Sallie was firmly established as a star of her own.

She would later go on to appear regularly on the tube with Ed Sullivan and Johnny Carson.

This jazzy, energetic album was the first try at arranging and conducting by Frank Wess. Two years later, he would score big with Bobby Darin's "Mack The Knife". Sallie finds a sexy groove here somewhere between Eartha Kitt and Sarah Vaughan. Unfortunately, she would vanish from the recording scene after one more album for MGM and a handful of singles.

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Bonnie Graham - Brown Gal (1962)

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last.fm scrobbles: 840

If you're only going to make one record, better make it a damn good one. Beautiful Bonnie Graham sure took that advice to heart. Brown Gal is a tour de force, reflecting an emotional depth belied by her apparent youth. She blended the weary vulnerability of Billie Holiday, the righteous anger of Nina Simone and the bluesy introspection of Dinah Washington to come up with her own distinctive sound. The simple but versatile quartet behind her (John Young, piano; Israel Crosby, bass; Vernal Fournier, drums; and George Eskridge, guitar) likewise moves seamlessly from jazz to blues to soul to gospel.

The only information I can uncover about Bonnie is in the liner notes. She was born LaVerne Buckner in St. Louis and won a trip to New York on a talent show. That's it. :meh:
 
Annette Warren - There's A Man In My Life! (1957)

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last.fm scrobbles: 1,440

She may be mysterious, but Annette is still alive, well and performing at age 96! :cheer:

Her remarkable story is here at Wiki:

Annette Warren (born July 11, 1922) is a popular jazz and song stylist best known for her vocal dubbing of such stars as Ava Gardner in the 1951 version of Show Boat. and Lucille Ball in both Fancy Pants and Sorrowful Jones.

Warren was born July 11, 1922 in Cleveland, Ohio. She was discovered in 1945 by vocal coach and arranger Phil Moore, who arranged her first recordings. She made her radio debut October 4, 1946, on Meredith Willson's Sparkle Time program on CBS.

She headlined clubs and theaters in London and across the U.S., including the Bon Soir, the Blue Angel and the St. Regis Hotel Maisonette in New York City and Ye Little Club in Beverly Hills. She co-starred as Mrs. Peachum in the off-Broadway revival of The Threepenny Opera with Jerry Orbach, Ed Asner and Beatrice Arthur and was also seen in the musical Livin' The Life with Alice Ghostley and Edward Villella.

Warren's television appearances include The Tonight Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Liberace Show, and The Summer Chevy Show. She also was seen on screen in the films Midnight Frolics and The Devil's Sleep.

Her first dubbing assignment was for the film Lured in 1947, followed by The Paleface in 1948, in which she sang for Iris Adrian. She dubbed the singing voice for Lucille Ball in Sorrowful Jones in 1949, and Fancy Pants in 1950. The following year, she auditioned to sing for Ava Gardner in MGM's remake of Show Boat (1951 film) and won the job over such other applicants as Dinah Shore and Lee Wiley. She also provided all of the female voices for John Hubley's UPA short Rooty Toot Toot, which was voted No. 41 of the "50 Greatest Cartoons" of all time and was nominated for an Academy Award for "Best Animated Short Film".

Warren recorded for such labels as Capitol Records, Verve Records, ABC Paramount Records, and Outstanding Records, and was married for 55 years to jazz musician Paul Smith (pianist), with whom she also occasionally performed. She co-starred over a 20-year period with fellow "ghost singers" India Adams, Betty Wand and Jo Ann Greer in the musical revue Hollywood's Secret Singing Stars.

In January 2016, Warren sang at the La Cicada Club in Los Angeles at a party held to celebrate to release of Lyn Stanley's album Interlude. Warren had been instrumental in encouraging Stanley to embark on her jazz-singing career in 2012. On April 24, 2016 (at the age of 93), Warren debuted a one-woman show entitled "I Ain't Done Yet" at the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro, CA.

On March 30, 2017, Warren returned to New York for the first time in nearly 60 years to headline at Feinstein's/54 Below at the age of 94, to critical acclaim, and continues to perform regularly at such clubs as the Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood.

I can add that she appeared at the Catalina again this year at age 96 with the premiere performance of her new show, Professor Bob and the Old Broad. :D

The above Spotify link will take you to her 2 disc retrospective. Her refined but warm style takes us back to to the Hollywood and Broadway of long ago.

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Darlene (Zito) - Come On Over (1958)

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last.fm scrobbles: 104

Only 13 other lucky last.fm listeners have stumbled across this enticingly breathy album.

IMDb tells us rather unhelpfully that "Darlene Zito is an actress, known for The Enchanted Pot (1962)."

IBDb is even less illuminating: Darlene is listed for her 9 day stint in Take a Bow (Jun 15, 1944 - Jun 24, 1944) as a "Lady of the Ensemble". Better than being a "Lady Of The Evening" I suppose. ;)

Not on Spotify. :mad:

:4.5: on the Sam-O-Meter. I'll be right there, Darlene.
 
Dorothy Dandridge - Smooth Operator (recorded 1958 & 1961, released 1999)

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last.fm scrobbles: 118,178

Dorothy Dandridge is the most familiar name we've encountered so far. A 1999 HBO documentary brought her many accomplishments to a wider audience.

Wiki tells us:

She is perhaps one of the most famous black actresses to have a successful Hollywood career and the first to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1954 film Carmen Jones. Dandridge performed as a vocalist in venues such as the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater. During her early career, she performed as a part of The Wonder Children, later The Dandridge Sisters, and appeared in a succession of films, usually in uncredited roles.

In 1959, Dandridge was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Porgy and Bess. Dandridge was married and divorced twice, first to dancer Harold Nicholas (the father of her daughter, Harolyn Suzanne) and then to hotel owner Jack Denison. Dandridge died under mysterious circumstances at age 42.

The only mystery about these superb 1958 recordings is why they sat in the vault for 40 years. :vic: At the peak of the sexy chanteuse phase of pop music, Verve recorded an album's worth of mostly ballads backed by Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown, and Alvin Stoller. Maybe she was too political for the Eisenhower years. :shrug:

This release also includes a couple of 1961 singles with a big orchestra.
 
Easy Williams - Easy Does It! (1957)

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last.fm scrobbles: 87 :oops:

This week we're back among the truly mysterious. The liner notes tell us only that "Easy Williams is a young lady with a most refreshing talent: she sings with the air of someone swinging gently in a hammock, someone with precious little to do but savor a grape or sip champagne - or sing." In other words, the writer didn't know anything either. :rolleyes:

Her style is very languid, sort of like Julie London on Quaaludes, as she lounges her way through a number of well-selected standards, including such natural choices as "Easy Street" and "Easy Come, Easy Go". The jazzy small group backing her was directed by guitar ace Allan Reuss, who played for years with big bands from Paul Whiteman to Jimmy Dorsey to Harry James to Benny Goodman. Afterward, he became one of the earliest Hollywood session men, part of the floating team that eventually became known as The Wrecking Crew. Producer Jack Elliott would go on to co-write themes for such TV hits as Barney Miller, Charlie's Angels and The Love Boat.
 
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