Joyce Bryant

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Joyce Bryant (1953) - Photo: Carl Van Vechten

Joyce Bryant (born October 14, 1928 in Oakland , California ) is an African American singer and actress who became famous in the US theater and nightclub scene in the late 1940s and early 1950s . Her trademarks were her dyed gray hair and tight-fitting clothes. She was considered one of the first African American sex symbols . In 1955 , at the height of her career, Bryant left show business to devote herself entirely to the Seventh-day Adventist Church . She reappeared for ten years: she had now completed classical singing training and also worked as a singing teacher.

youth

Bryant was the oldest of eight children. She was born in Oakland , California and grew up in San Francisco . Her father worked as a cook for the Southern Pacific Railroad . Her mother was a devout Seventh-day Adventist . Bryant, who was brought up strictly, was considered a quiet child, and originally wanted to be a lecturer in sociology .

She ran off at 14, but the hasty marriage lasted only one evening. In 1946 she visited relatives in Los Angeles. She took them to a nightclub and took part in a spontaneous group singing. "At some point I found out that I was the only one who was still singing," Bryant recalled in a 1955 interview with Jet Magazine . “Then the club owner offered me $ 25 for a performance. I accepted because I needed the money to be able to go back home. "

Career

During the late 1940s, Joyce Bryant had slowly earned herself many regular appearances. B. in New York nightclub La Martinique for $ 400 a week and completed a tour with 118 shows through hotels in the Catskill Mountains . After all, she was so famous that she even performed with Josephine Baker once . In order not to be in Baker's shadow, she dyed her hair gray with radiator paint and wore a tight silver-colored dress under a silver-colored, floor-length mink. Bryant later said of the moment she took the stage, "Everyone held their breath!" Bryant's silver hairstyle and figure-hugging clothes became her trademark along with the four-octave voice. She became one of the big stars of the early 1950s. At that time she was given nicknames like "the black Marilyn Monroe ", "the blast", or "the voice you will never forget".

Etta James wrote in her 2003 autobiography, Rage to Survive: The Etta James Story : “I didn't mean to seem harmless. I wanted to look like Joyce Bryant. [...] I want you. I thought Joyce was brave and imitated her: she exuded shamelessness and independence. "

Bryant released a number of recordings for Okeh Records from 1952 , including A Shoulder to Weep On , After You've Gone and Farewell to Love . Two of the most famous pieces she had in her repertoire, Love for Sale and Drunk with Love , were boycotted by radio stations because of the ambiguous lyrics.

When she released a recording of the song Runnin 'Wild two years later , Jet Magazine stated that this song was Bryant's first to pass the censorship of CBS and NBC. Bryant himself said in 1980: “It is an irony of fate that my biggest hit was Love for Sale . It was not allowed to be played in Boston and later [...] nowhere else either. "

Bryant spoke openly on the issue of racially motivated discrimination, of which she herself has often been a victim. She was the first female entertainer to appear in a Miami Beach hotel - despite threats from the Ku Klux Klan , who burned a doll on her behalf.

Bryant criticized different entry criteria for blacks and whites in nightclubs and hotels. She campaigned for artists to work together to fight the so-called "Jim Crow Laws". In 1954 she was one of the first black singers to appear at the Casino Royal in Washington, DC . There she said she had heard so much about the racial segregation that was practiced there that she was surprised to see so many African American visitors in the club: "It was exciting to see them come in and be treated so politely by the staff."

In a 1953 issue of Life magazine, Bryant was photographed in a provocative pose. The film historian Donald Bogle noted that white stars were rarely depicted in this way at the time. In 1954, Bryant was named one of the five most beautiful women in the world in Ebony magazine, along with Lena Horne , Hilda Simms, Eartha Kitt , and Dorothy Dandridge .

Farewell to and return to show business

Bryant made up to $ 3,500 from one gig in the early 1950s. However, she soon had enough of show business. The silver color ruined her hair, she didn't always want to work on weekends and felt uncomfortable as a "sex bomb". "Religion has always been important to me," she said in an interview, "and looking so sexy with those tight, low-cut dresses seemed like a sin to me."

Bryant recalled: “I had a bad sore throat once and still had to do eight performances a day. [...] Somebody called a doctor and he said, 'I can put cocaine on your throat, it will help. However, you will become dependent on it. ' My manager just said: 'Do what you want - the main thing is that she can sing again!' "

Bryant couldn't stand the men - often gangsters - who regularly went to the clubs she appeared in. She was once beaten in her dressing room by a man she had previously rejected. Her disenchantment with the drug and gangster milieu and the constant pressure from her management led Bryant to retire in late 1955. From then on, Bryant devoted himself to Seventh-day Adventists and enrolled at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama.

In May 1956, Ebony published a series entitled "Joyce Bryant's New World: Former Cafe Singer Abandoned $ 200,000 Career to Serve God."

Bryant had traveled the American south for years. She was furious to see black people being denied access to medical care because of the color of their skin. She then organized fundraising campaigns to finance food, clothing and medicine. She also continued to give concerts - with her natural hair color and no makeup - to raise funds for her church.

Bryant believed that the struggle for civil rights must be waged by all believers. But when she asked Seventh-day Adventist dignitaries to speak out against discrimination, she received a rebuff on the grounds, "These are earthly matters that have no spiritual importance." Disappointed, Bryant turned in the 1960s back to the entertainment industry.

She took lessons from the singing teacher Frederick Wilkerson at Howard University and was signed by the New York City Opera . She also toured around the world with Italian, French and Austrian opera ensembles. In the 1980s she started playing jazz again and made a career as a singing teacher. Among her clients were Jennifer Holliday , Phyllis Hyman , and Raquel Welch .

Discography (selection)

Albums

  • 1954: Runnin 'Wild

Singles

  • 1952: Love For Sale / A Shoulder To Weep On
  • 1953: It's Only Human / After You've Gone

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bryant, Joyce
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American singer
DATE OF BIRTH October 14, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Oakland , California , United States
  1. ↑ Nikki Brown: Black Beauty History: Joyce Bryant, the Original Bronze Bombshell. In: essence.com. Essence Communications, Inc., February 24, 2017, accessed March 31, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Andrew Hamilton: Joyce Bryant - Biography . Allmusic . Retrieved February 7, 2014.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Donald Bogle: Brown Sugar: Over 100 Years of America's Black Female Superstars , Expanded. Edition, Continuum International Publishing Group, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0826416759 , pp. 131-2.
  4. ↑ a b c d Joyce Bryant's Best Kept Secrets . In: Jet . 7, No. 21, March 31, 1955, ISSN 0021-5996 , pp. 59-61.  
  5. ↑ Lonnie G. Bunch, Kinshasha Holman Conwill, Natasha Tredthewey: African American Women (Double Exposure) . National Museum of African American History and Culture , Washington DC July 2015, ISBN 9781907804489 , p. 48.
  6. ↑ Veronica Wells: Joyce Bryant: The Black Marilyn Monroe . Madame Noire . February 1, 2011. Accessed March 31, 2019.
  7. ^ Marcus J. Moore: 'Joyce Bryant: The Lost Diva' at Watha T. Daniel / Shaw Library . Washington City Paper . June 10, 2011. Accessed March 31, 2019.
  8. ↑ Etta James, David Ritz: Rage To Survive: The Etta James Story . Da Capo Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2003, ISBN 978-0306812620 , p. 60.
  9. ↑ Record Reviews: Popular . In: Billboard magazine . 64, No. 46, November 15, 1952, ISSN 0006-2510 , p. 104.  
  10. ↑ Music: Leave Them Down . Time . July 20, 1953. Retrieved February 7, 2014.
  11. ↑ a b c d e Alan Ebert: Intimacies: Stars Share Their Confidences and Feelings . Dell Publishing , New York 1980, ISBN 978-0440136538 , pp. 359, 365.
  12. ↑ People . In: Jet . 5, No. 24, April 22, 1954, ISSN 0021-5996 , p. 25.  
  13. ^ Night Club Vaude Reviews . In: Billboard . 65, No. 1, January 3, 1953, ISSN  0006-2510 , p. 11.
  14. ↑ Ben Burns: Nitty Gritty: A White Editor in Black Journalism . University Press of Mississippi, Jackson 2007, ISBN 978-1934110027 , pp. 152-3.
  15. ^ Joel E. Siegel: Arts & Entertainment: Picks - Joyce Bryant . Washington City Paper . February 2, 2001. Accessed March 31, 2019.
  16. ↑ Avoid Jim Crow Fights? Singer Suggests Group Action Against Bias . In: Jet . 7, No. 19, March 17, 1955, ISSN 0021-5996 , pp. 61-2.  
  17. ↑ She resents Racial Billing By manager of Night Clubs . In: Ebony . 6, No. 5, March 1951, ISSN 0012-9011 , p. 64.  
  18. ↑ Alice Allison Dunnigan: A Black Woman's Experience: From Schoolhouse to White House . Dorrance, Philadelphia 1974, ISBN 978-0805918823 , p. 418.
  19. ^ Dan Burley: Talking About . In: Jet . 7, No. 6, December 16, 1954, ISSN 0021-5996 , p. 49.  
  20. ^ Foster Hirsch: Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King . Knopf Publishing Group, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0375413735 , p. 222.
  21. ^ A b Joyce Bryant Returns for Wilkerson Benefit . In: The Washington Afro American , April 25, 1978, p. 6. 
  22. ^ A b c George Smith: '50s Torch Singer Re-ignites Career To Rave Reviews . The Morning Call . April 27, 1990. Retrieved February 7, 2014.
  23. ^ The New World of Joyce Bryant . In: Ebony . 11, No. 7, May 1956, ISSN 0012-9011 , p. 107.  
  24. ^ Joyce Bryant Switches to Concert Stage . In: Jet . 21, No. 12, January 11, 1962, ISSN 0021-5996 , pp. 54-5.