Results for "Vocalist"

Madeline Bell

Born: July 23, 1942

Born Madeline Bell Brodus on 23 July 1942 in Newark, New Jersey, USA, and raised by her grandmother, who was originally instrumental in encouraging Madeline's natural singing talent at the age of five. She sang gospel music in church and at school, approximately eight years later Madeline became aware of pop music, inspired by Sam Cooke. During her High School years Madeline met singers at school who targeted their gospel music towards pop music. In addition Madeline sang on corners of streets, local clubs, and talent shows. Madeline was a prominent member of the local gospel choir and at the age of fourteen her voice was unique and powerfully penetrating, with such range it could be distinctly heard above a one hundred and fifty strong gospel ensemble. Madeline was sixteen when she joined her first gospel group The Glovertones and sang in church halls all over New Jersey and New York

Basia

Born: September 30, 1959

Basia is emerging with her strongest work yet, It's That Girl Again, an album that brings her trademark global pop/jazz sound into today. From the first track “If Not Now Then When”--the bouncing melody, soaring horns, and the feeling that you've landed in a small fiesta--it's as though she has never been away. Basia and her collaborator Danny White have always drawn from timeless influences: the rhythms and styles of Latin music, the sound of classic American soul and R&B, and the polish of '50s and '60s jazz; yet the sound is undeniably fresh. There is nothing about this album that is stuck in the past, rather it presses forward, building upon their many accomplishments during the course of their career. Poland-native Basia Trzetrzelewska was introduced as a vocalist with the group Matt Bianco and hits “Get Out of Your Lazy Bed,” “More Than I Can Bear” and “Half A Minute.” She and the group's main composer, keyboardist Danny White, departed to begin work on their debut, Time and Tide

Christy Baron

Born: November 1, 1963

Christy redefines “classics,” it’s entirely appropriate that she was signed by Chesky Records, an audiophile label that redefines the modern recording process by returning to the earliest recording techniques. Chesky works with artists who are not only great musicians, but who also must be able to stand up to a unique recording process.

Take This Journey was recorded live to two-track over a three-day period at St. Peter’s Church in Manhattan. “On a Chesky recording, one doesn’t have the standard modern-day options,” Christy says. “If you make a mistake, you don’t go back to fix it. There’s no punching in vocals, no overdubs, no compression or EQ.”

Blue Lu Barker

Born: November 13, 1913

Blue Lu Barker’s risqué song of 1938 “Don’t You Feel My Leg,” launched a career that would continue until her death in 1998. She was a singer and dancer in her native New Orleans where at the age of 13 she ran off with guitarist Danny Barker for New York in 1930. Accompanied by Barker she became very popular in New York and often they shared the billing with Cab Calloway and Jelly Roll Morton. After signing on with the Vocalion label in ’38, her first record was “Don’t You Feel My Leg.” This went on to become a huge national hit and the song associated with her. The song was covered by Maria Mulduar in the ‘80’s, giving it a new life and audience. She continued to perform and record until she retired from 1949 to 1964

LaVern Baker

Born: November 11, 1929

Her voice carried a fascinating mixture of sophistication and down-to-earth power that evoked Bessie Smith and the other vocalists of the classic era, and she did much to set in place the outlines of early rock and roll. LaVern Baker was one of the most original and significant African American vocalists of the 1950s and early 1960s. Baker was born Delores Williams on November 11, 1929, in Chicago. Her aunt was the classic blues vocalist Memphis Minnie, and she began to sing with friends at an early age. The raw power in her voice, came from gospel; Baker joined the choir at her Baptist church at the age of 12

Mildred Bailey

Born: March 27, 1907

Mildred Bailey was a popular American jazz singer during the 1930s. Born as Mildred Rinker in Tekoa, Washington, Bailey retained the last name of her first husband, Ted Bailey, when she moved to Seattle to bolster her singing career. With the help of her second husband, Benny Stafford, she became an established blues and jazz singer on the west coast. In 1925 she secured work for her brother, Al Rinker and his partner Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby. Crosby helped Bailey in turn by introducing her to Paul Whiteman. She sang with Paul Whiteman's band 1929 to 1933. In 1929, Whiteman had a popular radio program and when Bailey debuted with her version of "Moaning Low" in 1929, public reaction was immediate (although she didn't start making records with Whiteman until late 1931). Her first two records were as uncredited vocalist for an Eddie Lang Orchestra session in 1929 ("What Kind O' Man Is You?", an obscure Hoagy Carmichael song) that was issued only the UK and a 1930 recording of "I Like To Do Things For You" for Frankie Trumbauer

Alice Babs

Born: January 26, 1924

Swedish born Hildur Alice Nilsson, professionally known as Alice Babs first appeared publicly at the age of twelve, and she achieved instant fame. Her first hit recording was a song known in English as “The Yodeling Girl”. A string of Swedish film roles turned her into a teen movie star. She sang with famous classical musicians, performed for the Swedish Royal Family, and during World War II played for soldiers with popular acts like Sammy Davis. The first exposure Babs had to America was in 1962 when she toured with the Swe-Danes, a trio made up of Babs, guitarist Ulrik Neumann, and violinist Svend Asmussen

Eden Atwood

Born: January 11, 1968

Eden Atwood began singing jazz in Memphis, TN, at Shakey’s Pizza Parlor at age three years old. Singing jazz came naturally to Eden. Her father, Hub Atwood, was a writer and arranger for the likes of Frank Sinatra, Harry James, Stan Kenton and Nat King Cole. When Eden was five years old, divorce split the Atwood family and Eden moved to Montana with her mother, the daughter of Pulitzer Prize winning author, A.B. Guthrie, Jr. Eden’s mother kept her love of music alive by encouraging her participation in musicals. At 15, Eden was fronting a busy band of musicians twice her age in her hometown

Fred Astaire

Born: May 10, 1899

Elegance is usually an imposition, a set of mannerisms employed by the swells to cover their emptiness and maintain their distance from us plebeians. Fred Astaire's achievement — no, his glory — was that he made elegance infectious. He democratized and Americanized the word most overused to describe himself. And he did the same thing for dancing. Before the advent of sound movies, dance for most Americans meant tap dancers "laying down iron" in vaudeville. Before Astaire, screen dance was a thundering herd of chorines tapping out a Busby Berkeley abstraction. "I didn't think I had too much of a chance," Astaire would later say — with good reason

Susie Arioli

The Susie Arioli Band was started by singer Susie Arioli and guitar player Jordan Officer in 1997. At first the repertoire consisted of whatever Susie liked to sing, including jazz, country, R&B, bluegrass, blues, rock&roll.. Eventually the main focus of the band became jazz, and in particular pre bebop jazz. Their first big show was at the Montreal Jazz Festival, where after playing an outdoor show they were invited to open for Ray Charles at the prestigious Place Des Arts. Since then, the band has become a favourite of Canadian and International audiences with four best-selling jazz albums and tours of North America, Europe and Asia