Alberta Hunter

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Alberta Hunter (April 1, 1895 – October 17, 1984) was an American jazz singer and songwriter who played from the 1920s to the late 1950s, but then stopped performing.

In 1977, Hunter revived her popular singing career after twenty years of being a nurse.

Early life

Hunter was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to Laura Peterson, who served as a maid in a Memphis brothel, and Charles Hunter, a Pullman porter. Hunter said she never knew her father. She attended Grant Elementary School in Memphis off Auction Street, which she identified as Auction School. She went to school from the age of 15.

Hunter had a rough childhood. Although her father died as a child, she continued to help the family; her mother worked as a servant in a brothel in Memphis. Hunter was not content with her new family and left Chicago, Illinois, around the age of 11, in the hopes of becoming a paid singer; she had heard that it cost ten dollars per week. Rather than searching for a career as a singer, she had to make money by staying at a boardinghouse that paid six dollars a week, as well as bed and board. Hunter's mother left Memphis and came with her shortly after.

Personal life

Hunter married Willard Saxby Townsend, a former soldier who later became a baggage handler by the International Brotherhood of Red Caps in 1919, but the union was short-lived. Hunter didn't want to end her career, so they split within months. In 1923, they were divorced.

Hunter, a lesbian, kept her sexuality private, but she kept her sexual interests private. She sailed for France in August 1927, joined by Lottie Tyler, the niece of Bert Williams' well-known comedian, to be sailed for France. Hunter and Tyler had met in Chicago a few years ago. Many years ago, Tyler and his wife had been together until his death.

Hunter is buried in the Ferncliff Cemetery and Mausoleum in Hartsdale, Westchester County, New York (Elmwood section, plot 1411), the burial site for many celebrity graves.

Hunter's life was chronicled in Alberta Hunter's Rockin' (1988 TV film film), a documentary film directed by Chris Albertson and narrated by pianist Billy Taylor, and in Cookin' at the Cookery, a biographical musical by Marion J. Caffey, a tour guide to the United States in recent years with Ernestine Jackson as Hunter. In Jewelle Gomez's play Leaving the Blues, which will be produced by the TOSOS theatre company in New York City in 2020, Hunter's life and love with Lottie Tyler are represented. In Leaving the Blues, Rosalind Brown (from the original cast of Footloose and One Mo' Time) portrays Alberta Hunter.

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Hunter was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2011 and 2015 in 2011. The Blues Hall of Fame in 2009 recognized Hunter's comeback album, Amtrak Blues.

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Career

Hunter began her singing career in a bordello and soon moved to clubs that attracted both black and white alike. By 1914, she was receiving lessons from Tony Jackson, a well-known jazz pianist who helped her to expand her repertoire and write her own songs.

When she settled in Chicago, she was still in her early teens. Parts of her early career included stints at Dago Frank's, a brothel. She performed in Hugh Hoskin's saloon and, eventually, in several Chicago bars.

One of her first experiences as an artist was at the Panama Club, a white-owned restaurant with a large white customer base in Chicago, New York, and other major cities. Hunter's first performance was in an upstairs room, far from the main event; as a result, she began to perform as an artist in front of a cabaret audience. "The crowd would not remain downstairs." They'd like to hear us sing the blues upstairs. I would stand and make up verses and sing as I go along. Many believe that her appeal was motivated by her gift for creating better lyrics to please the audience. Her big break came as she was booked at Dreamland Cafe, performing with King Oliver and his band. She suggested that Columbia records should feature Oliver's band in early 1923, but Columbia declined because she was not available to record them.

She peeled potatoes by day and sounded club owners by night, determined to land a singing job. Hunter's tenacity paid off as she progressed from some of the city's lowest dives to a headlining position at its most coveted venue for black entertainers, the Dreamland ballroom. She had been with the Dreamland for five years, beginning in 1917, and her salary increased to $30 a week.

She first visited Europe in 1917, appearing in Paris and London. The Europeans treated her as an artist, demonstrating her respect and even reverence, which gave a positive portrayal of her.

Her career as a singer and songwriter flourished in the 1920s and 1930s, and she appeared in clubs and on stage in musicals in both New York and London. She wrote the critically acclaimed "Downhearted Blues" (1922).

She appeared on several records with Perry Bradford from 1922 to 1927.

Hunter continued to perform during the 1920s, beginning with sessions for Black Swan in 1921, Oklahoma in 1924, 1916-1926, 1926, Victor in 1927 and 1929 in 1929. She also worked for Harmograph Records under the name May Alix while still working for Paraphrasedoutput.

Hunter co-created "Downhearted Blues" with Lovie Austin, who also produced the track for Ink Williams on Paraphrasedoutput. She received only $368 in royalties. Williams had covertly sold the recording rights to Columbia Records in a deal in which all royalties were paid to him. With Bessie Smith as the vocalist, Columbia's hit became a big success. This record has sold over 1 million copies. Hunter discovered what Williams had done and stopped recording for him.

In 1928, Hunter appeared opposite Paul Robeson in the first London production of Show Boat at Drury Lane. She then appeared in nightclubs around Europe and appeared with Jack Jackson's society orchestra at the Dorchester, London, during the 1934 winter season. "Miss Otis Regrets" is one of Jackson's recordings.

She made several HMV recordings with the orchestra and appeared in Radio Parade (1934), the first British theatrical film to feature the short-lived Dufaycolor, but only Hunter's segment was in color. She spent the late 1930s and early 1940s on both directions of the Atlantic and 1940s performing at home.

Hunter later moved to New York City. She appeared with Bricktop and recorded with Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet. Clarence Todd and herself performed "Cake Walking Babies (From Home)," a Bechet and Armstrong tribute to Hunter's 1924 appearance in New York City, was another one of Hunter's hits recorded in December 1924. She continued to perform on both directions of the Atlantic and as the head of the United States. It was her first black show before her mother's death.

She became a U.S.O. in 1944. troupe to Casablanca and troops of both theatres of war during World War II and the early postwar period. She was a leader of the United StatesOccupation in the 1950s. troupes in Korea, but her mother's death in 1957 prompted her to seek a radical career change.

Hunter said that because her mother died in 1957, she was unable to perform because they were both spouses and so close. She reduced her age, "invented" a high school diploma, and enrolled in nursing school, embarking on a career in health care, where she worked for 20 years at Roosevelt Island's Goldwater Memorial Hospital.

Hunter was forced to leave because the hospital believed she was 70 years old. Hunter, who was actually 82 years old, has decided to return to singing. She had already performed on two albums in the early 1960s, but now she was an attraction at a Greenwich Village club, becoming a fixture there until her death in October 1984.

When Hunter first started working at Goldwater Memorial Hospital in 1961, she was refused to attend two recording sessions. She was videotaped for a portion of a Danish television show and filmed an interview for the Smithsonian Institution in 1971.

Hunter attended a soiree for her long-time friend Mabel Mercer, hosted by Bobby Short; music public relations agent Charles Bourgeois requested Hunter to sing and connected her with Barney Josephson, the owner of Cafe Society. The Cookery, Josephson's limited engagement at his Greenwich Village club, gave Hunter a limited appearance. Her two-week appearance there was a huge success, extending to a six-year involvement and a resurrection of her career in music.

Impressed with the media's attention, John Hammond partnered Hunter to Columbia Records in New York. He had not shown an interest in Hunter before, but he had been a close friend of Barney Josephson decades earlier when the former president was the Café Society Uptown and Downtown clubs. The Glory of Alberta Hunter, Amtrak Blues (on which she performed the jazz classic "Darktown Strutters' Ball") and Look For the Silver Lining did not sell as well as expected, but her Columbia albums, The Glory of Alberta Hunter, and The Glory of Alberta Hunter (on which she performed the jazz classic "Darktown Strutters' Ball") and Look For The Silver Lining, weren't as successful as anticipated, but revenues were nevertheless good. Several appearances on television shows, including To Tell the Truth (in which panelist Kitty Carlisle had to recuse herself, the two having known each other in Hunter's heyday), were also on television programs. She appeared in Remember My Name, a 1978 film by Alan Rudolph for which producer Robert Altman commissioned her to write and perform the soundtrack songs.

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