Grady Tate

Artist: Grady Tate

LP: Windmills of My Mind

Song: "The Windmills of Your Mind"

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Song: "Don't Fence Me In"

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Grady Tate is primarily known for his drumming (he played and recorded with the likes of Jimmy Smith, Simon and Garfunkel, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Astrud Gilberto, Count Basie and many others) but he also had an amazing voice! This 1968 LP I found at Daybreak Records the other day (now open at their new location!) is the first of six that Grady released as lead singer between 1968 and 1974. He also contributed vocals to several songs in the iconic "Schoolhouse Rock" series of educational tunes. His rendition of "The Windmills of Your Mind" (with Herbie Hancock on organ!) is probably one of the most beautiful things I've heard today. True, it's only 5:53am, but still. Wouldn't you kill to have windmills of the mind right now? Seems all anybody's got nowadays is helicopters.

[ Grady Tate: January 14, 1932 — October 8, 2017 ]

Nancy Wilson [1937-2018]

Artist: Nancy Wilson

LP: Tender Loving Care

Song: "Close Your Eyes"

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The lovely song stylist Nancy Wilson passed away at the end of 2018 just a few weeks before Christmas. I first saw her perform at Jazz Alley here in Seattle back in the late '90s when I was still pretty new in town. I invited some loser I was dating at the time. We arrived early to get good seats, but he couldn't handle "crowds" so we had to sit back in the corner and I had to twist like taffy to even glimpse Ms. Wilson on the stage. She was dressed in red and was vibrant and exciting, or so I was told. 

Nancy returned to Jazz Alley in late September of 2010, and this time I invited my friend Gene, who is not a loser, to go with me, since I knew he would appreciate the show. Though Nancy had been in and out of the hospital with health problems in 2006 and 2008 and her performance was more subdued than the previous time, she was very elegant, still had all her charm (she was very chatty!) and still had that incredible, beautiful voice. Someone captured video of her performing "When October Goes" that evening and put it on YouTube here. 

You can read all about Nancy Wilson on her Wikipedia page here (she's won three Grammys!) and check out her obituary here in The New York Times. And if you'd like to see another neat picture of Ms. Nancy Wilson, click here.

Nancy Wilson

[ February 20, 1937 — December 13, 2018 ]

We will miss you, Nancy.

Ann Hathaway

Artist: Ann Hathaway

LP: The Intimate Ann

Song: "New Love, New Wine"
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Well this is kinda' sad. The caption from page 100 of the book "New York City Jazz" says Ann Hathaway would be remembered as a great singer of the late 1940s. But nowadays she's hardly remembered at all!

Obviously whoever wrote that has never heard of THE PRINCESS DIARIES. I dare you to try Googling Ann Hathaway the great jazz singer of the late '40s. She doesn't even have a Wikipedia page! And even Google is pretty sure you couldn't possibly be looking for anyone other than the newer, larger-lipped, non-intimate Ann who has an 'e' at the end of her name—the one from LES MISERABLES. 

I wasn't able to find an obituary for my Ann Hathaway, which either means she's faded completely into obscurity and her body is lying someplace uncollected and alone, or maybe she's still alive! Ann, are you still with us? Please leave a comment here to let me know you're still alive and, at age 102 or whatever, you somehow managed to use the internet to Google yourself and find this blog post instead of just millions of these. 

By employing some advanced Ann Hathaway filtering tactics, I managed to come up with some neat photos of the singer cavorting in Washington Square and performing at Cafe Society in New York in 1947. The extensive LP liner notes about Ms. Hathaway and bandleader Andre Brummer from this (I think) 1956 release are included below.  

[ Ann Hathaway ]

Rose Murphy

Artist: Rose Murphy

7" EP: The "Chi-Chi" Girl - Rose Murphy Sings

Song: "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" 
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The older I get the more I find I need a little "Chi-Chi" when I get home from work on Friday nights. Rose "Chi-Chi Girl" Murphy earned her nickname due to her habit of sneaking the phrase "chi-chi" into the middle of many of her numbers. She even gets a few in here on this 7" EP from 1953. Married four times, Murphy's last husband was businessman "Pretty Eddie Murphy" (not to be confused with the ugly one, I suppose), who had once been married to Ethel Waters. You can read more about "The Girl With the Pale Pink Voice," aka. Rose "Chi-Chi" Murphy here.

[ Rose Murphy: April 28, 1913 — November 16, 1989 ]

Andy and the Bey Sisters

Artist: Andy and the Bey Sisters

LP: Andy and the Bey Sisters

Song: "Mood Indigo" 
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Song: "You Can't Be Mine Anymore" 
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Here's something pretty wonderful that I found at Bay Sound in Daphne, Alabama a few years ago. Andy and his sisters never did take America by storm, but they should have if you ask me, or if you ask whoever wrote the liner notes for the back of their 1961 debut LP on RCA. Of course the Europeans loved Andy and his sisters, but then they've always been ahead of the game. Marlon Brando has always known a good thing when he hears it too, and he loved Andy and the Bey Sisters. 

I just saw Brando last night in THE CHASE (1966), which for some reason I had thought was a comedy. It's not. Though a little heavy on the melodramatics, it's a good film about topical issues directed by Arthur Penn the year before he made BONNIE & CLYDE. It features an all-star cast, including a late-career turn by Miriam Hopkins, who you may remember from THESE THREE (1936), which was written by Lillian Hellman, as was the screenplay for THE CHASE. Hopkins also co-starred in some 'old' Bette Davis movies—THE OLD MAID (1939) and OLD ACQUAINTANCE (1943). Anyway, Brando loved Andy and the Bey Sisters. I don't know if he ever got to play them for Miriam Hopkins while they were working together, but I bet she would have loved them too.

You can read more about the fascinating and talented trio of Bey siblings here, find a 2004 NPR piece about some of Andy Bey's (relatively) recent work here, and listen to Andy perform a devastating version of Nick Drake's "River Man" here. There's also a video clip and liner notes a-plenty included below.

Andy and the Bey Sisters on YouTube:
[ "Smooth Sailing" ] 

[ Andy and the Bey Sisters ]

Mavis Rivers

Artist: Mavis Rivers

LP: Swing Along With Mavis

Song: "Cocoanuts" 
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Happy Leap Day! From both me and Samoan singer Mavis Rivers, who offers "Cocoanuts" from her swinging 1961 LP. The cover photo was taken at Pacific Ocean Park in Santa Monica, California. I went online to book my tickets for this summer, but found that the park shut down in 1968 after only nine years in operation.

[ Mavis Rivers: May 19, 1929 — May 29, 1992 ]