Alberta Hunter

Alberta Hunter, born April 1, 1895, in Memphis, Tennessee, and died October 17, 1984, was an American jazz and blues singer, songwriter, and Broadway performer whose career spanned more than six decades. She was born to Laura Peterson, who worked as a maid in a Memphis brothel, and Charles Hunter, a Pullman porter whom Hunter said she never knew. She attended Grant Elementary School in Memphis, remaining in school until approximately age 15.

Hunter left Memphis for Chicago around the age of 11, motivated by reports that singers could earn ten dollars a week. She found no immediate singing work and instead took a job at a boardinghouse for six dollars a week plus room and board. Her mother eventually left Memphis and joined her. Hunter began her singing career in a bordello and progressed through a series of Chicago clubs, including Dago Frank's, Hugh Hoskin's saloon, and the Panama Club, a white-owned establishment with a white-only clientele. By 1914 she was receiving instruction from jazz pianist Tony Jackson, who helped her broaden her repertoire and develop her songwriting. Her big break came at the Dreamland Cafe, where she sang with King Oliver and his band. She maintained a five-year association with the Dreamland beginning in 1917, during which her weekly salary rose to thirty-five dollars.

Hunter first traveled to Europe in 1917, performing in Paris and London. Her recording career began in earnest in the early 1920s, with sessions for Black Swan in 1921, Paramount from 1922 to 1924, Gennett in 1924, OKeh from 1925 to 1926, Victor in 1927, and Columbia in 1929. While under contract to Paramount, she also recorded for Harmograph Records under the pseudonym May Alix. She co-wrote "Downhearted Blues" with Lovie Austin in 1922 and recorded it for Ink Williams at Paramount Records, receiving only $368 in royalties. Williams sold the recording rights to Columbia Records without her knowledge, and the song became a major hit for Columbia with Bessie Smith as the vocalist, selling nearly one million copies. Hunter ceased recording for Williams upon learning of the arrangement. She also recorded with Perry Bradford from 1922 to 1927, and her December 1924 recording "Cake Walking Babies (From Home)," featuring Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong with a vocal duet chorus between herself and Clarence Todd, became another notable entry in her catalog.

In 1928, Hunter played Queenie opposite Paul Robeson in the first London production of Show Boat at Drury Lane. She continued performing in European nightclubs and appeared during the 1934 winter season with Jack Jackson's society orchestra at the Dorchester in London, where she recorded for His Master's Voice and recorded "Miss Otis Regrets" with the orchestra. She also appeared in the British theatrical film Radio Parade of 1935, released in 1934, which was among the first British films to use Dufaycolor; Hunter's segment was one of only two shot in color.

Hunter's Broadway career ran from 1930 to 1956 and included appearances in the musical Change Your Luck, as well as the comedies Debut, Mrs. Patterson, and Mamba's Daughters. In 1944 she enlisted with the USO and was placed in charge of African American Unit 342, known as "The Rhythm Rascals." In October of that year, the unit became the first USO troupe to visit the China-Burma-India theatre of war. She also took her troupe to Casablanca and continued entertaining troops through the remainder of World War II and into the early postwar years. In the 1950s she traveled with the USO to occupied Japan and Korea.

Following the death of her mother in 1957, Hunter withdrew from performing. She reduced her stated age, obtained a falsified high school diploma, and enrolled in nursing school. She worked first as a volunteer at the Joint Diseases Hospital in Harlem and then for twenty years at Goldwater Memorial Hospital on Roosevelt Island. The hospital compelled her to retire under the belief that she was 70 years old; she was in fact 82. She had made a brief return to recording in the early 1960s, participating in two recording sessions in 1961 while still employed at Goldwater, and was videotaped for a Danish television program in 1971 and interviewed by the Smithsonian Institution the same year.

Hunter's full comeback began in the summer of 1976 when she attended a party for her longtime friend Mabel Mercer, hosted by Bobby Short. Music publicist Charles Bourgeois connected her with Barney Josephson, owner of The Cookery in Greenwich Village. A two-week engagement there extended into a six-year run. John Hammond subsequently signed her to Columbia Records, resulting in the albums The Glory of Alberta Hunter, Amtrak Blues, on which she recorded "Darktown Strutters' Ball," and Look For the Silver Lining. She also made numerous television appearances during this period, including on To Tell the Truth. Hunter continued performing at The Cookery until her death on October 17, 1984.