Alberta Hunter

Happy Birthday Alberta Hunter 1895-1984...When she was 12 she left her home in Memphis to claim her fame as a singer in Chicago but Chicago was already overrun by young girls trying to make it big and even lying about her age wasn't enough for club owners to give her a try. She got a job peeling potatoes that came with room and board and kept her dream alive until 1911 when she got a job at Dago Frank's, a tough bordello frequented by pimps and criminals. More jobs at low-rent establishments followed as she slowly climbed her way up, saving enough money to bring her mother to live with her in Chicago.

She married briefly but the marriage was never consummated, Hunter claiming she didn't want to have sex in the same house as her mother. In truth she was a lesbian and her husband soon left for the south. She met Lottie Taylor, the niece of Bert Williams, not long afterwards and the two became lovers and companions for many years.

She was hired by the Elite Cafe where the openly gay New Orleans Ragtime pianist Tony Jackson played. She helped to popularize many of Jackson's songs including "Pretty Baby" which was written for his boyfriend. Her star began to rise and in 1915 she was hired by the Panama Cafe, an expensive all-white establishment  that was soon closed because of a murder. She was soon working at the Dreamland Cafe, a prestigious venue for black entertainers, where King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band played, making friends with his pianist Lil Hardin. She was a featured soloist at Dreamland for 5 years and billed as "The Sweetheart of Dreamland". She often played at other nightclubs after hours and it was at one of those clubs that her pianist was shot and killed on stage.

Hunter left the violence of Chicago for New York in 1921. She made her first recordings that year with Black Swan Records backed by Fletcher Henderson's Novelty Orchestra, the first blues recordings made by that label. She switched to Paramount Records a year later with Fletcher Henderson continuing to back her. She recorded nearly 35 sides in less than 2 years, many of them of her own compositions. She wrote "Downhearted Blues" while at Paramount but they sold the rights to the song to Columbia Records without her knowing it. The song became Bessie Smith's first big hit and Hunter switched her record label, but not before becoming the first black singer to be backed by a white band, The Original Memphis Five, in 1923.

Hunter continued recording with musicians such as Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson, Fats Waller, Eubie Blake and Lovey Austin, altogether making over 80 sides before 1930. She performed in several musical reviews during this time as well, replacing Bessie Smith in "How Come?" establishing herself as a star in New York.

In 1927 she left to tour Europe, appearing with Paul Robeson in the first London production of Showboat as well as in other musical reviews. Her travels took her to Paris, Nice, Monte Carlo, Copenhagen, Russia and the Middle East, effectively keeping her away from the troubles at home during the Depression. Returning home in 1935 she still found an audience for her live performances but recording dates were hard to come by. During WW2  and into the early 50's she traveled throughout Asia, the South Pacific Islands and Europe on the USO circuit, keeping her fan base going with engaging live performances. 

After the death of her mother in 1954, Hunter gave up the music business, faked a high school diploma, shaved years off her age and enrolled in nursing school at the age of 59. Only once during her 20 years working at a NYC hospital was she lured out of "retirement", to record with her friends Lovey Austin and Lil Hardin Armstrong. None of her work colleagues or patients knew anything about her former fame and travels which she preferred. 

The hospital retired her when they thought she was 65 (she was 81) and Hunter found herself once again lured into the world of music. She was offered  two weeks at the Cookery, a NY restaurant in the Village, which became an ongoing  engagement. She began recording again, gaining new fans with her gritty, down and dirty presentation, wrote the music for and appeared in the Robert Altman film "Remember My Name", fought for and won better royalties for her earlier recordings, made television appearances and performed once again in Europe and in South America. Her comeback lasted 6 years.