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Alberta Hunter (April 1, 1895 – October 17, 1984) was an American jazz and blues singer and songwriter from the early 1920s to the late 1950s. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] After twenty years of working as a nurse, Hunter resumed her singing career in 1977.
Oct 13, 2024 · Died: October 17, 1984, New York, New York (aged 89) Alberta Hunter (born April 1, 1895, Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.—died October 17, 1984, New York, New York) was an American blues singer who achieved international fame in the 1930s for her vigorous and rhythmically infectious style and who enjoyed a resurgence of celebrity in the late 1970s ...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Alberta Hunter was an enormous hit, doing television and magazine interviews, negotiating a recording contract with Columbia, making her debut at Carnegie Hall, appearing in Vogue, and singing at the Kennedy Center at a ceremony honoring Marian Anderson. Finally at age 89, in 1984, Hunter quit singing because of poor health.
Apr 10, 2023 · A true jazz pioneer, survivor, and admirable example of class, let us remember her name. Alberta Hunter left her hometown of Memphis just shy of her twelfth birthday, and went to Chicago to become a blues singer. She lived with a family friend, worked odd jobs, and became a cook. By 1911, she landed a singing job in Chicago’s tough South Side ...
- Music Forged in Early Childhood Traumas
- Singing Career Expanded
- Traveled and Performed Extensively
- Returning to Music After Nursing
- Selected Works
- Sources
It has been said that to write and sing the blues, you need to live the blues. Alberta Hunter was born on April 1, 1895, in Memphis, Tennessee. Her father, Charles E. Hunter, was a sleeping-car porter on a railroad. He abandoned the family soon after Hunter was born. Her mother, Laura Peterson Hunter, worked as a maid in a brothel just to support h...
From there, Hunter’s career advanced, with her getting jobs in several black clubs. In 1915 she was hired by the Panama Café, one of Chicago’s top spots with a largely white clientele. She became immensely popular, even to the point that some composers paid her to introduce their songs. Among the most interesting were when W.C. Handy asking ...
She was an active and industrious performer, often singing at several clubs or shows at the same time. She did several recordings under different names, recording for the Biltmore label as Alberta Prime, the Gennett label as Josephine Beatty, and the OKeh, Victor, and Columbia labels as Alberta Hunter. In the 1920s Hunter performed in vaudeville on...
Back in New York in the early 1950s, Hunter again started performing at clubs and in plays, but her career was waning. She joined a church and started doing volunteer work at the Joint Diseases Hospital in Harlem and was named Volunteer of the Year in 1956. She was devastated by the death of her mother in 1954. She realized that she needed to do so...
Albums
Young Alberta Hunter: The Twenties, Stash. Classic Alberta Hunter: The Thirties, Stash. The Legendary Alberta Hunter: The London Sessions—1934, DRG. Songs We Taught Your Mother, Prestige/Bluesville. Alberta Hunter with Lovie Austin’s Blues Serenaders, Riverside. Remember My Name(original sound track recording), Juke Box. Amtrak Blues, Columbia. The Glory of Alberta Hunter, Columbia. Look for the Silver Lining, Columbia.
Singles
Bring Back the Joys, Black Swan, 1921. After All These Tears, Paramount, 1922. Chirping The Blues, Paramount, 1922. Down Hearted Blues, Paramount, 1922. Bleeding Heart Blues, Paramount, 1923. Old Fashioned Love, Paramount, 1924. Wasn’t It Nice, OKeh, 1926. Beale Street Blues, Victor, 1927. Gimmie All the Love You Got, Columbia, 1929. Second Hand Man, ARC, 1935. You Can’t Tell the Difference After Dark, ARC, 1935. Boogie Woogie Swing, Bluebird, 1940.
Other
Alberta Hunter: Jazz at the Smithsonian(video), Sony Corporation, 1982.
Books
Harris, Sheldon, Blues Who’s Who: a Biographical Dictionary of Blues Singers, Arlington House, New Rochelle, NY, 1979. Harrison, Daphne, Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920s, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 1988. Santelli, Robert, The Big Book of Blues, Penguin Books, New York, 1993. Taylor, Frank C., with Gerald Cook, Alberta Hunter, A Celebration in Blues, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1987.
Periodicals
National Review, November 30, 1984, p. 18. USA Today, September 1993, p. 97.
On-line
“Alberta Hunter,” Red Hot Jazz, www.redhotjazz.com/hunter.html (September 26, 2003). “The Classic Blues and the Women Who Sang Them,” Calliope Film Resources, www.calliope.org/blues/blues1.html (September 26, 2003). —Patricia A. Donaldson
May 26, 2021 · donne del blues femminismo Lunàdigas omosessualità scelta senza figli una vita per l'arte. The extraordinary story of Alberta Hunter, who conquered the world of music twice: in the 1920s, when she became a blues diva, and then again at the age of 80, when she took the stage again, rekindling dreams and demons of an entire era.
Dec 18, 2007 · Still a dynamic and versatile stage performer, Hunter soon became nearly as sought after as she had been at the height of her singing career in the 1920s. She continued to work until shortly before her death in 1984. Alberta Hunter was a key link between the country-based and melodic female blues of the early 1920s and the vaudeville scene ...
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