Nellie Lutcher

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Nellie Lutcher

Nellie Lutcher (born October 15, 1912 (often incorrectly given as 1915 ) in Lake Charles , Louisiana , † June 8, 2007 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American singer and pianist in the field of swing and rhythm and blues .

Live and act

Nellie Lutcher came from a large family, her father, Isaac Lutcher, was a bassist and worked with Bunk Johnson , and her mother, Susie, was a church organist . Her brother was saxophonist Joe Lutcher and her nephew was Latin jazz percussionist Daryl “Munyungo” Jackson . As a child, after her mother recognized her talent, she received lessons on the guitar , violin , mandolin and piano . At the age of twelve she accompanied Ma Rainey at a performance when her regular pianist fell ill. At the age of 14, she joined Clarence Hart's Imperial Jazz Band with approval from her father , where she played for five or six years. Allegedly, she also had a brief marriage to the band's trumpeter. In 1933 she became a member of the Southern Rhythm Boys , led by Paul Barnes , with whom she toured the country and for whom she wrote some arrangements .

In 1935 she moved to Los Angeles , where she married Leonel Lewis, with whom she had a son. There she played swing piano and performed regularly at Club Alabam on Central Avenue. They also acted as a studio musician , among others Lena Horne and Ivie Anderson and himself began to sing. In the Los Angeles area she performed with small combos and slowly developed her own singing style , influenced by Earl Hines , Duke Ellington and her friend Nat King Cole. She didn't think of herself as a singer; however, the demand for her increased when she began to sing. She also started to write her own songs like He's a Real Gone Guy or Hurry On Down .

Little known to the general public when she appeared at a charity event for March of Dimes in Hollywood in 1947 . This show was broadcast on the radio, which Capitol Records noticed and offered her a record deal. Her falsely given year of birth is often explained by the fact that Capitol executives believed Nellie Lutcher was too old to start a music career at 35 and then launched 1915 as her year of birth, making her 3 years younger. Nellie Lutcher contradicted this representation in an interview and explained the discrepancy with an “error or typographical error”. Nellie Lutcher recorded a number of titles for Capitol, including " The One I Love Belongs to Somebody Else " and her first hit, "Hurry on Down," which rose to number 2 on the Rhythm 6 blues charts . The following song "He's a Real Gone Guy" also reached second place and was also successful at number 15 in the pop charts.

In 1948 she had a number of other hits in the R&B charts, with “Fine Brown Frame” reaching position 2 as the highest. She became known nationwide through several tours, and so her songs regularly landed in the US pop, jazz and R&B charts. In 1950 Capitol released a record by Nat King Cole and Nellie Lutcher, on which they sang the duets "For You My Love" and "Can I Come in for a Second". Through this collaboration with Nat King Cole, Nellie Lutcher also became known in Europe, followed by two European tours in the early 1950s, where she was particularly successful in London. In 1951 she recorded " The Birth of the Blues " and "I Want to Be Near You" with orchestra accompaniment ; However, the record was not very successful, so that Capitol did not renew their contract in 1952.

In 1953, her life story was presented in a TV special, which in the short term generated increased demand for her early Capitol hits. She played a few more records for labels such as Okeh , Decca and Liberty , but was far from able to build on her earlier successes. The waning public interest and the upbringing of her son finally led her to accept a position with the musicians' union in Los Angeles. From time to time Nellie Lutcher would still go to the recording studio and record records. B. 1957 a remake of their signature song "Hurry On Down" for the Imperial label , with "I Never Got Tired" on the back. In 1973 and then again in 1980 she performed in New York City. In the mid-1980s, Marian McPartland introduced them on her radio program Piano Jazz . She also had irregular appearances in clubs or television programs until the late 1990s; In 1994 she played herself in the German comedy " Sunny Side Up " directed by Bettina Speer .

In 1992 she received the Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation .

Singing style

Her singing style, which she accompanied with her swing-influenced piano playing, was characterized by exalted scat and exaggerated emphasis on individual words. Typical of her and the early rhythm & blues of those years was also the preoccupation with erotic topics, which, due to the American censorship regulations, were sung about with sometimes heavily claused texts.

Musical effect

Although Nellie Lutcher has not released many records and only a few of these recordings have even achieved greater fame, she has had a lasting influence on many artists with her unusual, expressive style, especially Nina Simone . When Nellie Lutcher retired from the music business in the late 1950s, the career of Nina Simone, who had adopted many elements of Nellie Lutcher's singing and piano style, began at the same time.

Discographic notes

  • Ditto from Me to You (Capitol, 1947)
  • Real Gone (Pausa, 1954)
  • Our New Nellie (Hallmark, 1955)

Reprints & Compilations

  • The Best Of Nellie Lutcher (CD, Capitol, 1995)
  • Nellie Lutcher and Her Rhythm (4-CD box, Bear Family Records , 1996)
  • Real Gone / Our New Nellie (CD, Collectables, 2000)
  • Real Gone Gal (CD, Blue Boar Records, 2000)
  • Hurry On Down (CD, Empress, 2001)
  • Hurry On Down (CD, Memoir, 2001)
  • Real Gone Gal (CD, Capitol, 2002)

literature

  • Whitney Ballet American Singers: Twenty-Seven Portraits in Song Univ. Press of Mississippi 1988; ISBN 1578068355 (pp. 35–41)
  • Linda Dahl Stormy Weather. The Music and Lives of a Century of Jazzwomen . Quartet Books. London 1984. ISBN 0-7043-2477-6
  • Will Friedwald : Swinging Voices of America - A Compendium of Great Voices . Hannibal, St. Andrä-WIERT, 1992. ISBN 3-85445-075-3
  • John Jörgensen, Erik Wiedemann : Jazzlexikon , Munich, Mosaik, 1967
  • Bill Millar: Nellie Lutcher And Her Rhythm . CD booklet, Bear Family Records, 1996

Web links

Individual notes

  1. ↑ This was so, according to local historian and playwright Carolyn Woosley . Other sources don't mention this early marriage (Bunk Johnson was the band's trumpeter at the time).
  2. ↑ Linda Dahl ( Stormy Weather , p. 71) according to which she did not get married until 1947. Nat King Cole , Art Tatum and the pianist Lottie Moser met in their home .
  3. ^ Reference to Horne and Anderson in Jörgensen / Wiedemann, p. 233.
  4. ↑ cit. n. Linda Dahl, Stormy Weather , p. 68
  5. ^ Dahl Stormy Weather , p. 71
  6. ↑ See the biography at Earthlink.net , which otherwise has some errors.
  7. ↑ According to Linda Dahl ( Stormy Weather , p. 71), however, she was a successful broker. This also fits the description in Whitney Ballet.
  8. ^ Whitney Ballet American Singers: Twenty-Seven Portraits in Song p. 35
  9. ^ Dryden, Ken: Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz with Nellie Lutcher. In: All About Jazz . Archived from the original on November 27, 2011 ; accessed on November 27, 2011 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Lutcher, Nellie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American R&B singer and pianist
DATE OF BIRTH October 15, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Lake Charles , Louisiana
DATE OF DEATH June 8, 2007
Place of death Los Angeles , California