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Alberta Hunter, American blues singer who achieved international fame in the 1930s for her vigorous and rhythmically infectious style and who enjoyed a resurgence of celebrity in the late 1970s and early ’80s. She performed in vaudeville and later for the USO during World War II and the Korean War.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Alberta Hunter was a well known blues singer, songwriter and nurse of American origin. Spanning a career of six decades, she surpassed many human feats and achievements. She started her singing career in Chicago’s Dago Frank’s, a brothel.
- Music Forged in Early Childhood Traumas
- Singing Career Expanded
- Traveled and Performed Extensively
- Returning to Music After Nursing
- Selected Works
- Sources
It has been said that to write and sing the blues, you need to live the blues. Alberta Hunter was born on April 1, 1895, in Memphis, Tennessee. Her father, Charles E. Hunter, was a sleeping-car porter on a railroad. He abandoned the family soon after Hunter was born. Her mother, Laura Peterson Hunter, worked as a maid in a brothel just to support h...
From there, Hunter’s career advanced, with her getting jobs in several black clubs. In 1915 she was hired by the Panama Café, one of Chicago’s top spots with a largely white clientele. She became immensely popular, even to the point that some composers paid her to introduce their songs. Among the most interesting were when W.C. Handy asking ...
She was an active and industrious performer, often singing at several clubs or shows at the same time. She did several recordings under different names, recording for the Biltmore label as Alberta Prime, the Gennett label as Josephine Beatty, and the OKeh, Victor, and Columbia labels as Alberta Hunter. In the 1920s Hunter performed in vaudeville on...
Back in New York in the early 1950s, Hunter again started performing at clubs and in plays, but her career was waning. She joined a church and started doing volunteer work at the Joint Diseases Hospital in Harlem and was named Volunteer of the Year in 1956. She was devastated by the death of her mother in 1954. She realized that she needed to do so...
Albums
Young Alberta Hunter: The Twenties, Stash. Classic Alberta Hunter: The Thirties, Stash. The Legendary Alberta Hunter: The London Sessions—1934, DRG. Songs We Taught Your Mother, Prestige/Bluesville. Alberta Hunter with Lovie Austin’s Blues Serenaders, Riverside. Remember My Name(original sound track recording), Juke Box. Amtrak Blues, Columbia. The Glory of Alberta Hunter, Columbia. Look for the Silver Lining, Columbia.
Singles
Bring Back the Joys, Black Swan, 1921. After All These Tears, Paramount, 1922. Chirping The Blues, Paramount, 1922. Down Hearted Blues, Paramount, 1922. Bleeding Heart Blues, Paramount, 1923. Old Fashioned Love, Paramount, 1924. Wasn’t It Nice, OKeh, 1926. Beale Street Blues, Victor, 1927. Gimmie All the Love You Got, Columbia, 1929. Second Hand Man, ARC, 1935. You Can’t Tell the Difference After Dark, ARC, 1935. Boogie Woogie Swing, Bluebird, 1940.
Other
Alberta Hunter: Jazz at the Smithsonian(video), Sony Corporation, 1982.
Books
Harris, Sheldon, Blues Who’s Who: a Biographical Dictionary of Blues Singers, Arlington House, New Rochelle, NY, 1979. Harrison, Daphne, Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920s, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 1988. Santelli, Robert, The Big Book of Blues, Penguin Books, New York, 1993. Taylor, Frank C., with Gerald Cook, Alberta Hunter, A Celebration in Blues, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1987.
Periodicals
National Review, November 30, 1984, p. 18. USA Today, September 1993, p. 97.
On-line
“Alberta Hunter,” Red Hot Jazz, www.redhotjazz.com/hunter.html (September 26, 2003). “The Classic Blues and the Women Who Sang Them,” Calliope Film Resources, www.calliope.org/blues/blues1.html (September 26, 2003). —Patricia A. Donaldson
Dec 18, 2007 · Alberta Hunter was a key link between the country-based and melodic female blues of the early 1920s and the vaudeville scene which had a much wider audience. She was also the first of a number of female artists who would find success singing the blues.
Despite her upbringing, she went on to become one of the most famous jazz and blues performers of her time. Then, shocked by her mother's death in 1954, Hunter retired from the limelight and worked as a nurse for 20 years.
Apr 10, 2023 · Backed by pianist Gerald Cook and bassist Jimmy Lewis on this 1981 album, Hunter was at the height of her career revival. LOS ANGELES, Calif.—It's difficult to decide which was the most remarkable facet of pioneering blues chanteuse Alberta Hunter's incredible career.
1895 - 1984. “Maybe if I knew music I couldn't do what I am doing.”. – Alberta Hunter. At 12 she fled poverty in Memphis to become a blues singer in Chicago. Hunter began singing at a brothel, but nightclub jobs soon followed.
