In February we published Steve Cushing’s Blues Before Sunrise which features interviews with prominent blues players, producers, and deejays.  Below is an excerpt from the introduction to Cushing’s chapter on Alberta Hunter.  Listen to an audio clip from the Alberta Hunter interview here.

The classic blues singers were the women who pioneered blues recording starting with the very first blues record by Mamie Smith in 1920 and continuing on to 1930 when the Great Depression finally caught up with the recording industry. During this decade there were 260 different women who made blues records. Some, like Bessie Smith (160 records) and Ma Rainey (90-plus) recorded extensively while others made only a single record or a single side of a record. Not only did these women pioneer blues recording, getting into the recording studios at least four years before the first male blues singer, but they also served as the launching point for many of the early giants of jazz. In some of their earliest recordings, such notable jazzmen as Fletcher Henderson, Louis Armstrong, Don Redman, Fats Waller, and Coleman Hawkins could be heard accompanying classic blues singers.

Of the 260 women who made records during this decade, Alberta Hunter was the twelfth, making her first record in May 1921 for the first black-owned record label, Black Swan. Most of the bigname classic blues singers—and Alberta was among this elite group—were affiliated with a single record label. For instance, Bessie Smith and Clara Smith recorded exclusively for the Columbia label, and Ma Rainey and Ida Cox recorded exclusively for the Paramount label. Alberta, on the other hand, recorded for a dozen different labels in ten years. Alberta was one of two classic blues singers whose careers transcended the classic blues era. When that era came to an end, only Alberta Hunter and Ethel Waters continued in show business with any notable degree of success. Ethel did it by appearing in Broadway productions and recording popular tunes; Alberta traveled to Europe, becoming a popular cabaret singer in both London and Paris. She stayed in Europe until World War II broke out, then returned to the United States and immediately signed on with the USO. She spent the duration of the war touring and entertaining Allied troops in every theater of action, including Europe, Africa, and Asia. At the end of the war it was her intention to return to show business, but her mother fell ill, so Alberta retired from performing to tend to her mother. When her mother finally died, Alberta realized that she enjoyed nursing so much she became a licensed practical nurse. She pursued this career until the early 1970s, when she was forced into mandatory retirement at the age of seventy. But leave it to Alberta—she had lied about her age and actually was ten years older than listed. So at the age of eighty she returned to the only other business she knew—show business.

My best friends were planning a trip to New York City and asked if I would be interested in coming along. I was definitely interested—I had been corresponding with Ella Johnson, trying to land an interview with her. Ella was the younger sister of big band leader Buddy Johnson and was also his acclaimed vocalist, the voice on many of the band’s greatest hits, including “Since I Fell for You,” “That’s the Stuff You Gotta Watch,” and “Please, Mr. Johnson.” I finalized the agreement for the interview with Ella and then started to sort through all the other names of people I might interview while in the city. The artist who fired my imagination was classic blues singer Alberta Hunter. Alberta had recently ended a twenty-year retirement from show business. On her return she initially worked at Barney Josephson’s famed Café Society. From there she recorded a series of LPs with legendary producer John Hammond, settled in for a long run at the Cookery in Manhattan, made high-profile performances at a series of international music festivals, and appeared on all the television talk shows of the day—she was a media darling.