How Two Stars Revived Their Careers at Concord Records

From 1996 to 2002 I produced 15 shows—mostly on vocalists—or NPR's Jazz Profiles. I was fortunate to have as subjects two legendary vocalists—Ernestine Anderson and Rosemary Clooney—both of whom I interviewed in their homes in Seattle and Beverly Hills. In learning about their lives, I was struck by how they had seemed to be following similar paths.

They were both born in 1928 and left home in their teens to tour with big bands. Both became hugely popular in the 1950s but stepped away in the late '60s and remained inactive for about a decade. Then they were each "rescued" by a musician friend and—here is the main point—launched second careers with Concord Records.

Anderson and Clooney both signed with the fledgling label in 1977 and stayed with them for years, Ernestine recording 12 albums and Rosemary 27.

These weren't nostalgia works, but rather highly regarded as some of the best work of these two marvelous vocalists. Critics agreed that each had reached not only a higher level of excellence but also employed new techniques. Ernestine reached deeper into her blues and gospel roots while Rosemary became a jazz singer!

Early Signs of Talent

Like most great vocalists, Ernestine and Rosemary displayed their singing talent at a very early age. They each began singing "publicly" at the age of 3.

Ernestine was born in Houston, Texas, and moved with her family to Seattle in 1944. Rosemary was born in Maysville, Kentucky, and was raised by her grandparents.

Ernestine's parents and grandparents sang in the church gospel choir and her father was part of a gospel quartet. Her parents loved music and played records on their Victrola all the time. At the age of 3, little Ernestine was singing along with Bessie Smith or whatever voice she heard coming from the record machine.

When she was older, she sang solos at church and became lead singer of the school band. She won a singing contest at the age of 12 which resulted in a weekly gig, and she sang with Russell Jacquet.

Meanwhile in Maysville, 3-year-old Rosie Clooney was singing at her grandfather Andrew Clooney's campaign rallies. He thought the sight of his cute little granddaughter singing her heart out would help him win the mayorship of Maysville. It did.

Rosemary and her younger sister Betty formed a duo and sang regularly at Cincinnati radio station WLW, joining in with guest musicians of any genre. Rosemary attributed that experience to her love for all forms of music.

The Clooney girls continued their sister act through their teens. They caught the attention of Tony Pastor, who hired them to tour with his band along with their uncle as chaperone. After three years with Pastor, Rosemary signed with Columbia Records in 1947 and cut 14 sides with the Pastor band before leaving the group.

Betty grew tired of life on the road and went back home, while Rosemary headed for New York to pursue a solo singing career in 1949.

Meanwhile, Ernestine was in Los Angeles working at a club after touring for a year. with Johnny Otis. She made her first record of a couple of blues tunes and also married for the first time.

Becoming Star Vocalists

Rosemary was already an established singer with Columbia when Mitch Miller came on board as the head of the popular music division. He offered Rosemary a song titled "Come On—a My House," with the lyrics in a sort of Armenian American accent. She didn't like it and didn't want to do it, but Miller said, "You do it or I fire you."

Despite Rosemary's misgivings, the record was a huge hit. It was No. 1 for six weeks on the 1951 Billboard charts. That changed Clooney's life.

Ernestine, now back in Seattle, auditioned for visiting bandleader Lionel Hampton and was offered a job. She left her two kids with her parents and went on the road again in 1952. After 15 months, when the group was set to go on a European tour, Ernestine declined and stayed in New York.

Rosemary's career was going very well. She made the cover of Time Magazine (February 1953), bought a house among the movie stars in Beverly Hills, and had another big hit in 1954, "Hey There" from the musical The Pajama Game. She did a few movies including White Christmas (1954) and had her own television show in 1956-57. She married the famous actor Jose Ferrer in 1953 and had five children between 1955 and 1960, one per year.

There's no question—Rosemary Clooney had made it big in more ways than one.

Meanwhile, Ernestine was trying her luck in New York. She gigged some and made a recording with Gigi Gryce in 1955. She caught the attention of Swedish trumpeter Rolf Ericson, who invited her to do a three-week tour in Scandinavia. She agreed and, in places where some people had never seen a black person before, she was exotic and a sensation. They gave her a Swedish-sounding nickname "Steen."

After the tour was over, Ernestine stayed on and recorded an album titled It's Time for Ernestine in Stockholm in 1956. Back in Seattle, she gave a copy to Ralph Gleeson, an influential jazz critic from San Francisco. He was extremely impressed and urged Mercury Records to release it, which they did in 1958 under the title "Hot Cargo."

It was a big hit in the jazz world. Ernestine was named by Downbeat Magazine as "Best New Star of 1959." A Time magazine article called her "perhaps the best kept jazz secret in the land." She appeared at the first Monterey Jazz Festival in 1958 and recorded six albums for Mercury.

Both Ernestine Anderson and Rosemary Clooney had become star vocalists in the 1950s, the Golden Age for Vocals.

Dropping Out

The year 1968 is considered one of the worst years in our history. Two of our greatest heroes—Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F Kennedy—were assassinated. The Vietnam War was raging and the civil rights movement was in full swing.

And The Great American Songbook had been pretty much replaced by rock and roll, as exemplified by The Beatles, the The Rolling Stones and others. Work was hard to come by for artists like Ernestine Anderson and Rosemary Clooney. In fact, both dropped out and quit the business.

Rosemary had a nervous breakdown. She was within a few feet of Robert F. Kennedy when he was shot on June 6, 1968. That was basically the last straw—her personal life and career were in trouble. She was juggling a career, five kids and a wandering husband and seeing her friend killed was just too much. She was hospitalized and went into therapy.

Ernestine was living in Europe (London, to be precise), as were so many other jazz artists at the time, to find work. She eventually returned to the U.S. and lived in LA for a few years but found the situation insupportable for singers like her. In 1973, she walked off a gig and went back to Seattle. She basically gave up singing and did other kinds of work. She only sang rarely at a small club near Seattle. And to save her soul, she took up Buddhism.

To the Rescue

Both Ernestine and Rosemary were saved by the "cavalry" in the form of musician friends—bassist and band leader Ray Brown for Ernestine and Bing Crosby for Rosemary.



Brown came to Seattle on a gig and, seeing Ernestine not pursuing her great talent, he decided to do something about it. He spoke with Carl Jefferson, an avid jazz fan, who had just started a jazz festival in Concord, California as the popularity of jazz began to return. He suggested Jefferson put Ernestine in his 1976 festival.

Ernestine was a smash hit. Only a few years before, Jefferson had started Concord Records to record the musicians he hired for his festivals. So, he signed Ernestine and thus began her very successful second career.

She recorded 12 albums, demonstrating her newfound appreciation of the blues. She had avoided the blues when she was young, thinking it was inferior music, but now embraced the form.

"I had to live the blues before I could understand it." she explained. At 50, she'd had her share of tough times. And now she understood what the Blues meant for both the singers and the listeners. She had become one the best blues singers in the business.

As for Rosemary's comeback, her good friend Bing Crosby played a crucial role. He invited her to join his 50th anniversary tour in 1976—the same year Ernestine did the Concord festival. It revitalized Clooney and she was ready to work again.



Some musicians alerted Jefferson about Clooney and he offered her a contract, only a year after signing Ernestine.

In her second career, Clooney became the singer she was meant to be, not the purveyor of silly pop tunes, but a superior interpreter of the Songbook. She had morphed into a jazz singer.

2nd Careers at Concord

Rosemary Clooney was not only one of the most prolific female singers, but probably the one who recorded the most in the later part of her career—with not only the most consistently excellent but the most amazingly personal series of statements.

Will Friedwald, music critic and author known for his work on the Great American Songbook, considers Clooney a jazz singer.

Beginning in 1977, Concord Records released 27 Clooney albums, about one per year, starting with Everything's Coming Up Rosie.

She followed Ella's example and recorded a series of songbook tribute albums -some were Ella's "usual suspects"—Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin, among others. She also recorded with Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Harry James and Woody Herman.

Clooney said that it was Ellington who first gave her a glimmer of her own value as an artist. She said working with Ellington "validated me as an American singer. My work would not fade with my generation. I had now moved into a very exclusive group." (Will Friedwald, liner notes, Sentimental Journey)

At an age (49) when most of her pop vocalist contemporaries of the 1940s and '50s were semi-retired or comfortably ensconced in the nostalgia circuit, Clooney was busy reinventing herself as a jazz stylist doing elegant and impeccable readings of the Songbook. She had morphed from a singer of silly pop tunes to a sophisticated jazz lady!

She received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002, the year she died. She also published two autobiographies, This For Remembrance in 1977 and Girl Singer in 1999.

Ernestine made 12 albums for Concord between 1976 and 1993. She recorded with Ray Brown's Trio, George Shearing, Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, vibraphonist Cal Tjader, saxophonist Scott Hamilton and pianist Gene Harris, as well as other musicians on the concrete label. She did both studio and live recordings. Two of her albums received Grammy nominations, Never Make Your Move Too Soon and Big City.

As one critic put it, "the Concord years cemented her place as one of the great jazz vocalists of her time."

In the latter half of her career, Anderson performed at the most prestigious venues: Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, The Hollywood Bowl, the first Monterey Jazz Festival, and even the White House. She toured the world from Japan to Europe to South America.

"The best thing about the Concord series is the way Anderson integrates blues and standards."

—Will Friedwald, A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers

Eventually, she left Concord to make two albums for her old friend Quincy Jones' new label Qwest. Both albums received Grammy nominations. Then she made four albums for High Note Records.

Both Ernestine Anderson and Rosemary Clooney performed and recorded through their 70s, not something every vocalist gets to do. And it was all due to Concord Records founder Carl Jefferson.

Coda

Upon finishing my interview with Clooney, she said, "that was the best interview I ever had" and wrote that on the album I had brought for her to sign.

A short while later I received an invitation to the opening of Feinstein's club at the New York Regency with Rosemary performing. I went and it was a blast to be in the same room as so many celebrities. I recognized Tony Bennett, Liza Minnelli, Bea Arthur, and, of course, Michael Feinstein.

I didn't get a chance to speak to Rosemary because she was constantly surrounded by family and friends. But the signed album is on the wall above my desk and is one of my most prized possessions.

At the time of the interview with Ernestine, I happened to be moving from California to the Seattle area. She asked me if I wanted to be her publicist. I happily agreed so for the next four years, I traveled with her around the country and to Austria, Canada and on a Caribbean jazz cruise.

It was fun and I never got tired of hearing her sing.

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