Vaughn De Leath

Vaughn De Leath, born Leonore Vonderlieth on September 26, 1894, in Mount Pulaski, Illinois, was an American singer who became one of the most prominent radio entertainers of the 1920s, earning the nicknames "The Original Radio Girl" and "First Lady of Radio." Her parents were George and Catherine Vonderlieth. At age 12 she moved to Los Angeles with her mother and sister, completed high school there, and studied music. She later attended Mills College, where she began composing songs before leaving to pursue a professional singing career, at which point she adopted the stage name Vaughn De Leath. Her vocal range extended from soprano to deep contralto, and she adapted readily to the jazz-influenced vocal styles emerging in the late 1910s and early 1920s.

De Leath is frequently credited as an early exponent, and sometimes as the inventor, of crooning. In January 1920, radio pioneer Lee DeForest brought her to the studio of his station, 2XG, located in New York City's World's Tower, where she broadcast "Swanee River." According to some historical accounts, having been warned that high notes in her natural soprano might damage the fragile vacuum tubes of the carbon microphone's amplifier, De Leath shifted to a deep contralto, a technique that became identified as the origin of crooning, the dominant popular vocal style for the following three decades. DeForest later remarked that she was an instant success and that her voice and microphone presence were ideally suited to the task. By 1921 she was performing regularly at WJZ in Newark, New Jersey, a station later known as WABC in New York City.

Her recording career also began in 1921, and over the following decade she recorded for numerous labels including Edison, Columbia, Victor, Okeh, Gennett, and Brunswick. She recorded under a range of pseudonyms for subsidiary labels, among them Gloria Geer, Mamie Lee, Sadie Green, Betty Brown, Nancy Foster, Marion Ross, Glory Clarke, Angelina Marco, and Gertrude Dwyer. Her stylistic versatility allowed her to perform as a serious balladeer, a comedic vaudeville entertainer, and various other vocal personas. Her recording accompanists included cornetist Red Nichols, trombonist Miff Mole, guitarists Dick McDonough and Eddie Lang, and bandleader Paul Whiteman. De Leath also demonstrated considerable instrumental skill, playing ukulele, banjo, guitar, and piano. She accompanied herself on ukulele on the 1925 recording "Ukulele Lady," which was later used in the 1999 film The Cider House Rules, and that same year she narrated and sang on a May Singhi Breen ukulele instruction record for the Victor label. She additionally recorded songs for silent films and composed material for them, including the song "Oliver Twist" for the 1922 silent film of the same name. One of her notable recordings, "Are You Lonesome Tonight?," made in 1927, gained wider recognition decades later when Elvis Presley's 1960 recording of the song became a major hit.

In 1923, De Leath became one of the first women to manage a radio station when she took charge of WDT in New York City, where she also performed and led a sixty-piece orchestra. That same year she began appearing on Broadway, with credits that included the play Come Easy and the play Laugh, Clown, Laugh!, her Broadway work spanning 1923 to 1925. In 1928 she appeared on an experimental television broadcast and later served as a special guest for the debut broadcast of The Voice of Firestone radio program. She was also among the first American entertainers to broadcast to Europe via transatlantic radio transmission.

De Leath was married twice. In 1924 she wed artist Leon Geer; the marriage ended in divorce in 1935. The following year she married musician Irwin Rosenbloom, from whom she was divorced in 1941. In 1931 she sued Kate Smith for using the "First Lady of the Radio" designation; Smith temporarily stopped using the title but resumed it after De Leath's death. De Leath made her final recording in 1931 for the Crown label and her last nationwide network performances in the early 1930s, after which she made appearances on local New York stations including WBEN in Buffalo. Financial difficulties and a drinking problem marked her later years. De Leath died on May 28, 1943, in Buffalo, New York, at age 48. Her ashes were buried in Mount Pulaski, Illinois, the town of her birth.