Jesse Cryor
Jesse Olden Cryor (born August 12, 1906 in Baltimore , Maryland , † January 11, 2006 in Hazel Crest , Illinois ) was an American blues and jazz singer and songwriter .
Jesse Olden Cryor, the eldest of seven children, went blind in his youth after a traffic accident. To add to the family's livelihood, he performed as an entertainer in local speakeasies and toured with the black vaudeville tour group Drake and Walker Revue from his hometown of Baltimore from 1927 . For a while he performed as a soloist in New York; then he toured with the Will Mastin Trio and later with the pianist Bob Williams in his Williams and Cryor troupe (1930-33). In the late 1930s he was active again as a soloist and also led his own band, Jesse Cryor and the Ramblin 'Rascals .
In 1940 he married the show dancer Laverne Wesley, whom he had met in Los Angeles . In 1942/43 he was a vocalist in the Noble Sissle Big Band . After leaving Sissle's band, Cryor settled in Los Angeles and worked on the West Coast . In 1946 he recorded two records for the G&G label in Los Angeles and took part in a session with the Irving Ashby Band. As a film singer he acted in the 1946 Disney strip Uncle Remus' Wonderland as the voice of B'rer Rabbit . In the 1940s he took on supporting roles as an actor under the name Jessie Cryer . When his career opportunities in Los Angeles diminished in the late 1940s, he moved to Chicago in 1950.
In 1951 he recorded there as Cryin Jesse for Premium Records ("And She Cried" / "Feelin Goodie Goodie"). Cryor left the music business in 1952 and worked as a doorman at the Palmer House Hotel until his retirement in the early 1980s . One of his songs, "You've Got Me Wrong," was recorded by Billy Boy Arnold during his October 1955 session for Vee-Jay Records . Cryor suffered a stroke in 1995 and died in Hazel Crest, Illinois in 2006.
His daughter Phyllis M. Johnson wrote a (so far unpublished) biographical portrait of the last surviving representative of the vaudeville era ( Jesse Cryor , 2001); Tab Smith wrote an obituary in the Chicago Sun-Times in January 2006 .
Individual references / comments
- ↑ a b c d Robert Pruter and Robert L. Campbell: The Premium Label ( Memento from April 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ This was not mentioned in the credits of the film. See Campbell / Pruter.
- ↑ Jessie Cryer in the Internet Movie Database (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cryor, Jesse |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Cryor, Jesse Olden (full name); Cryer, Jessie |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American blues and jazz singer and songwriter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 12, 1906 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Baltimore , Maryland |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 11, 2006 |
| Place of death | Hazel Crest , Illinois |