Written by the British author Iain Cameron Williams, the book has a foreword by Dame Cleo Laine.

The writer Stephen Bourne says of the book:

“By documenting Adelaide Hall's early years in show business, Iain Cameron Williams takes the reader on a roller coaster ride, making stops in New York, Chicago, Paris, London; visiting Broadway, the Moulin Rouge and the Cotton Club. It is impossible to pause for breath and put the book down, for the author has brilliantly captured the spirit of Miss Hall, and uncovered facts hitherto unknown. Her energy, talent and passion for life made her one of the best-loved, and most in-demand entertainers of the 1920s and 1930s, and yet so little has been published about her.

Too often Adelaide Hall has been overlooked in histories of jazz and popular music. This thoroughly researched biography, written with love, must surely give her the recognition she deserves as the real First Lady of Jazz, and as a trailblazer in popular entertainment. This is a journey everyone should take."

Stephen Bourne (author of Black in the British Frame: Black People in British Film and Television 1896-1996.)

Williams' biography deals exclusively with Adelaide Hall's early career during the 20s and 30s in America and Paris and concludes upon her arrival in Britain in 1938. While Hall’s achievements in the U.S. seem to have been largely forgotten or overlooked by music historians, in Britain during the 40s and 50s she was one of the country's highest-earning stars.

2001 marked the centenary of Adelaide Hall's birth in Brooklyn, N.Y. and the 75th anniversary of her classic hit recordings of “Creole Love Call" and “The Blues I Love To Sing", which she recorded with Duke Ellington in 1927.

Underneath a Harlem Moon...The Harlem to Paris Years of Adelaide Hall is published by Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 0826458939

Continuum
London/New York