Freddie Shaffer and the Victory Sweethearts
Freddie Shaffer and the Victory Sweethearts was an American swing big band that was founded in 1938 and - apart from its leader Freddie Shaffer - consisted only of women.
Band history
The girls' big band Freddie Shaffer and the Victory Sweethearts was founded by the musician Freddie Shaffer from Frankfort ( Indiana ). He had previously played in the orchestras of Fred Waring and Paul Whiteman before he came to Clinton County, Indiana , to work as a music teacher. At the height of the big band era in 1938, Shaffer began performing as an all-girl band with 15 girls who were around 15 years old. This big band played contemporary swing and in 1941 got the opportunity to play as The Freddie Shaffer Band in the local station in Frankfort, then on the radio station WKMO in Kokomo , of which recordings exist. They also performed in clubs in the area on weekends. Their increasing notoriety led to guest appearances in colleges, universities and in larger cities of the Midwest; The theme song was " Moonglow ".
In 1942 the band received a one-week engagement at Club Geneva On The Lake in Ohio , which was so successful that they made guest appearances there all summer. After the USA entered the war , they performed as part of troop support at USO events and toured the east of the USA, where they mainly played in military bases, now under their new name Freddie Shaffer and the Victory Sweethearts . After the end of the Second World War and the USO tours, the band members gradually left the group, mostly to get married. Shaffer broke up the formation - with the waning interest in big bands - in 1953 and returned to Frankfort, where he died in 1956 at the age of 53.
Members included bassist Lois "Maxine" (Wright) DeLuca, saxophonist Pat Wolff, trombonist Mary Caroline Bennett and trumpeter Arthella Louise Phelps. Pat Wolff, who died in 1999, wrote the autobiography I Ran Away With An All-Girl Band about her time in the girls' band .