Milt Hinton born June 23, 1910

Milton John Hinton (June 23, 1910 – December 19, 2000) was an American double bassist and photographer. Regarded as the Dean of American jazz bass players, his nicknames included "Sporty" from his years in Chicago, "Fump" from his time on the road with Cab Calloway, and "The Judge" from the 1950s and beyond. Hinton's recording career lasted over 60 years, mostly in jazz but also with a variety of other genres as a prolific session musician. He was also a photographer of note, praised for documenting American jazz during the 20th Century.

Hinton was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, United States, the only child of Hilda Gertrude Robinson, and Milton Dixon Hinton. He was three-months-old when his father left the family. He grew up in a home with his mother, his maternal grandmother and two of his mother's sisters. At the age of eight, the youngster witnessed a lynching, an event that would remain an indelible memory. Soon afterwards, the family left for Chicago, part of African America's great migration northward. Hinton took violin lessons but, before turning professional, spent a short period involved with Al Capone's booze racketeering. He took up the bass and worked with the city's top leaders, including Boyd Atkins, Tiny Parham, Eddie South, Jabbo Smith, Erskine Tate, Zutty Singleton, and Fate Marable.

Milt with Cab Calloway

In 1935, he joined the prestigious Cab Calloway Orchestra, where with his full tone and tremendous drive became a mainstay of the band's rhythm section. He remained with the band for 26 years. Singing hits such as Minnie The Moocher, Calloway was a popular entertainer who hired the best musicians and worked at the celebrated Cotton Club. Leading his trombones was Keg Johnson, who got Hinton the job and encouraged his early interest in photography, teaching him darkroom procedures while they were on the road and introducing him to Leica cameras. Throughout his Calloway days, Hinton carried a camera in his pocket. He documented the joys and rigours of the travelling life and, in the south, the indignities of segregation. These latter images, depicting eminent jazzmen standing beside "Colored Only" signs, retain an ability to shock, although to Hinton and his colleagues, they were snapshots, made for amusement rather than as political statement.

                                  

When Calloway disbanded in 1951, Hinton worked as a freelance in New York, and was soon one of the most sought-after jazz musicians. He played with, anong others, Count Basie and Louis Armstrong's All Stars until a chance meeting with Jackie Gleason changed his life for ever. He knew Gleason, then a television personality, from his days as a nightclub comedian, and it was he who arranged immediately for the bassist to be hired for a record date. There, he was acknowledged by the regulars, all of them white. For Hinton, this recognition went deeper than individual satisfaction, for de facto segregation still kept African Americans out of the studios and the best-paid musical work. He, together with trumpeter Joe Wilder, pioneered the breakthrough. In a musicians' community politicised by the civil rights struggle, he was admired for his diplomatic savvy and respected for his racial politics and demeanour.

Hinton's jazz recordings alone run into the thousands but, by the end of the 1950s, he had become a ubiquitous figure in the commercial studios. To refuse work in such a competitive field was unwise, so he worked around the clock - keeping an instrument at each major studio. Meanwhile, he became an integral part of rock 'n' roll, laying down the beat behind countless hit records. Some of his most notable commercial work involved other eminent jazzmen, and a quartet in which he played with pianist Hank Jones, drummer Osie Johnson and guitarist Barry Galbraith became known, unofficially, as the New York Rhythm Section. In constant demand, Hinton backed singers as diverse as Paul Anka and Jackie Wilson, and was nicknamed "Judge" because of the standard he set.

Milt with Duke Ellington

Harmonic experiments in the 1940s with Dizzy Gillespie made him a forerunner of modern jazz bass players and, later, during the generational consolidation inspired by the black politics of the 1960s, he was among the elder statesmen welcomed on to the bandstand by the most avant-garde of young musicians. In 1970s, he played in the New York Bass Choir, where his presence lent majesty to explorations uniting Ron Carter, Richard Davis, Sam Jones and others. Hinton also taught at Hunter College, CUNY and undertook a few overseas tours and was a member of the band that accompanied Bing Crosby on his final trip to Europe.

For years, Hinton's photography was an insider's secret. Shooting at recording sessions during playbacks and breaks, he provided valuable insight into the priorities of fellow artists. Yet while a poignant image of Billie Holiday at her last session became known, it was not until David Berger, at Temple University, Philadelphia, began cataloguing Hinton's vast collection that the value of his enterprise was revealed. Following the publication of the two books, Bass Line (1988) and Over Time (1991), photographic requests poured in. Hinton was revitalised by this unexpected interest.

Mona & Milt

In 1939 when Hinton returned to Chicago for his grandmother's funeral, he met Mona Clayton, who was then singing in his mother's church choir. The two were married a few years later and remained inseparable for the rest of Milt's life. They had married in the Calloway days, and she played an important role in organising his hectic life. During Art Kane's 1958 Esquire session that produced a famous photograph of 57 musicians on a Harlem doorstep, it was Mona who shot movie footage, and this, with Hinton's own stills, contributed to A Great Day In Harlem (1994), the award-winning movie about that day.

In 1990 George Wein produced a concert as a part of the JVC Jazz Festival in honour of Hinton's 80th birthday. Similar concerts were produced for his 85th and 90th birthdays. By 1996, he ceased performing on bass, due to a number of physical ailments, and he died in Queens, New York, at the age of 90 on December 19, 2000.

Edited from The Guardian obit, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz & Wikipedia) 

Joe Medwick born June 21, 1931

 

Joe Medwick (June 21, 1931* – April 12, 1992) was an American rhythm and blues singer and songwriter who was the great underground hero of Texas Soul/R&B. Whether it was writing songs or singing them his talents were truly astonishing. But thanks to his preference for the Houston nightlife offered by the city’s notorious Third Ward rather than his career, his name never got outside of the city limits.

He was born Medwick N. Veasey in Houston, Texas, on June 21, 1931, the son of Rayfield Veasey and Renatta Watson. Though mainly noted as a lyricist whose songs were often covered by other singers, Veasey, best-known both personally and professionally as Joe Medwick, also recorded and released material (under pseudonyms) on various labels from 1958 through 1988. A lifelong Houstonian, Veasey grew up in Third Ward and attended Yates High School. As a youth he reportedly adopted the nickname “Joe” as a prefix to his given name because of the national popularity of the major league baseball player Joe Medwick (who first starred for the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1930s). In his teens Veasey launched his singing career, performing with the Chosen Gospel Singers for approximately four years before turning his focus to secular music.

                                   

After serving in Korea with the US Army, he returned to the Third Ward in Houston, where he performed in a blues club, Shady's Playhouse, often with pianist Teddy Reynolds (who later accompanied Bobby Bland), and increasingly spent his time writing lyrics and composing tunes for other blues musicians to sing. According to the Texas State Historical Association: "Medwick was often able to sell the resulting material almost immediately to local music producers. In doing so, he rarely asked for formal contracts to establish proper songwriting credit for himself, instead choosing to peddle the songs outright —thereby surrendering any rights to potential royalty payments — for ready cash. Thus, among his musician peers and industry insiders (if not always supported by publishing documentation), Medwick is commonly known to have written or co-written many songs which became hits for other artists with the writing credits typically attributed exclusively to the person who had purchased (and thereafter registered the copyrights on) the compositions."

TNT Briggs, Don Robey and Bobby Bland

He sold many of his songs to Don Robey, the owner of the Duke and Peacock labels whose major stars were Bobby Bland and Junior Parker. In a few cases, including "Further On Up The Road", Medwick was given a co-writing credit, though it is thought that Medwick in fact wrote the song with Johnny Copeland rather than with Robey. Copeland said: "Joe tied the record up with Mr. Robey, just as he did with every song. Joe sold Mr. Robey maybe five hundred songs, ten, fifteen dollars apiece..." In many other cases, including "I Pity the Fool", "Turn On Your Love Light", "Call On Me", "I Don't Want No Woman", "Driving Wheel", and "Cry, Cry, Cry", it is believed that Medwick wrote the songs but the credit was taken by Robey, often using his song writing pseudonym Deadric Malone. In a 1990 interview, Medwick acknowledged his poor judgement in trading his songs for cash, while absolving Robey of any blame. He also sold his songs to other record producers in Houston, including Huey Meaux.

During the late 1950s, Medwick also recorded his own songs occasionally for Robey, none of which created much interest. During the 1960s he recorded for small local labels including Paradise, Allboy, East-West, Boogaloo and Pacemaker, often using various names. It is thought that his best songs were held back from him, so that bigger stars like Bobby Bland - with whom he later fell out - could record them instead.  A handful of releases on Teardrop, Westpark, VE GEO and Kimberly make up the remainder of Medwick's singles output. In '65 he appeared on Monument for one release and a year later he recorded Robert Parker's Barefootin'.

Drinking took its toll during the '70s and '80s, and Medwick languished in complete obscurity through the disco years. In 1978, Huey Meaux issued a compilation LP of many of Medwick's demo recordings, Why Do Heartaches Pick On Me. In the mid-'80s former Little Richard sax titan Grady Gaines came out of retirement and launched The Texas Upsetters, an old-school R&B band that still plays today. Medwick was tabbed as one of two lead vocalists for the combo, with his old friend from the gospel days, Big Robert Smith taking the other slot. Gaines signed with Black Top Records and released two albums, “Full Gain” (1988), and “Horn Of Plenty”, on which Medwick and his songs could at last be heard identified correctly. Fate seemed to finally be smiling on Medwick but then he was stricken by liver cancer and died at his home in Houston on April 12, 1992. As a military veteran, Veasey is buried in Houston National Cemetery.

(Edited from Wikipedia & Bear Family liner notes)(*other sources give 1933 as birth year.)

(I could only find two photographs of Joe on the web and one of them is taken from the video below)

Lalo Shifrin born June 21, 1932

 Lalo Schifrin (June 21, 1932 – June 26, 2025) was an Argentine and American pianist, conductor and arranger. He was the composer of some 100 works for classical and jazz orchestras and of more than 150 scores for film and television, but he will inevitably be remembered for just one piece of music he wrote in five minutes in 1966 – the theme to Mission: Impossible.

Boris Claudio Schifrin was born into a Jewish family in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was the son of Luis Schifrin, a violinist in the orchestra of the Teatro Colón, and his wife Clara, née Slifquin. “In my house it was Schubert and Beethoven,” he said. Lalo, as he was known, had been expected to follow in the footsteps of his father, who often took the boy to the opera. “If Verdi were alive today he would be one of the great film composers… Just listen to what the orchestra does in Otello,” Schifrin told Gramophone magazine.

At the age of six he began studying piano with Enrique Barenboim, the father of Daniel Barenboim. In case music did not work out he went on to read sociology and law at the University of Buenos Aires. As a student he declared his determination to pursue a career in jazz but was admonished by his parents for choosing a life full of “drugs, alcohol and ladies of the night”. Tango, he added, “was considered lower-class and was forbidden”, though he grew familiar with it while working as Astor Piazzolla’s pianist in the 1950s.

He went to lectures given by the composer and theorist Juan Carlos Paz, who had been a student of Schoenberg in Vienna and who spoke about Webern, Berg and the history of modern music. “I asked him if he would teach me privately,” he said, adding that “thanks to him I won a scholarship to the Paris Conservatoire.” There, he worked with the composer Olivier Messiaen. “I had a double life. I would study at the Conservatoire with him during the day and play in jazz bands at night in places like the Club Saint-Germain,” he said. “Messiaen didn’t like jazz, but he was a very nice man, a Catholic mystic.” After Saturday evenings spent in jazz clubs he attended Mass the following morning simply to hear Messiaen play the organ.

Schifrin recalled this as a time of polo-necked sweaters, Juliette Gréco and existentialism. “Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir used to hold court in the cafés, and during the intermission in the club I used to come and hear what they had to say,” he added. In 1955 he represented Argentina at the International Festival of Jazz in Paris before returning to Buenos Aires and starting a jazz band. The following year Dizzy Gillespie, who was touring Argentina for the US State Department, heard him and whisked him to New York.

There he wrote Gillespiana, an extended work for big band that was both a tribute to the trumpeter and an exploration of the Latin rhythms that were an integral part of Gillespie’s repertoire. It marked the start of a period making music with Latin dance orchestras across the city interspersed with touring the world accompanying such legends as Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald and Miles Davis. Over the next decade he produced more than 100 jazz albums, including for Gillespie and Stan Getz, and was the mastermind behind organist Jimmy Smith’s Grammy-winning album The Cat (1964).

                                  

Meanwhile, in 1963 he moved to Hollywood, where he wrote his first film theme, for the African adventure Rhino! (1964). He was much influenced by both Henry Mancini and Bernard Herrmann, but his finest work was altogether tougher than theirs, and adeptly set the mood for the hard-edged pictures for which he so often wrote, notably Once a Thief (1965), with Alain Delon, and Coogan’s Bluff (1968), with Clint Eastwood, while for television he composed the music for Dr Kildare and the private-eye series Mannix. In 1966 Schifrin took a call from the CBS television producer Bruce Geller, who needed a theme tune in a hurry. Within a matter of minutes he had produced the bones of the Mission: Impossible theme, a breathless beat played on the bongos combined with a sexy flute line.

This unmistakable tune helped to turn a TV show about secret agents into a hit, eventually spawning a vast film franchise culminating in this year’s $400 million Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. “It had to be like a call to the viewers to watch,” the composer explained of the music’s urgency. He them worked on the Oscar-nominated score for Cool Hand Luke (1967), the prison drama featuring Paul Newman. The director Stuart Rosenberg later called him in for The Amityville Horror (1979), based on the supernatural experience of a family from Amityville, New York, and was rewarded with a chilling score, again nominated for an Oscar, featuring creepy playground singing.

For the Bruce Lee hit Enter the Dragon (1973) Schifrin combined big funky guitar sounds and Chinese-sounding figurations with John Barryesque strings and Lee’s whoops and cries. The film inspired him to take up martial arts, reaching black-belt status, and he was delighted to learn that Lee had been practising his own moves to the Mission: Impossible theme. He also wrote the scores for the Winston Churchill kidnap thriller The Eagle Has Landed (1976), with Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland and Jenny Agutter, and The Fourth Protocol (1987) starring Caine and Pierce Brosnan.Being a keen footballer he was delighted to be asked to work with the Three Tenors, Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti and José Carreras, on their 1990 World Cup concert by the ancient Baths of Caracalla in Rome. They collaborated again for concerts in Los Angeles (1994) and Paris (1998), with the composer demonstrating an uncanny ability to write in the style of operatic composers such as Puccini, Verdi and Bizet.

Schifrin, who spoke English with a melodious Spanish accent, lived in Beverly Hills in a large but homely house that had once belonged to Groucho Marx. He described how his studio, with leather sofas, a grand piano and a desk strewn with manuscript paper, was done up “like an English pub”. It was crammed with books, awards and antique scores, as well as a large collection of pipes collected on his travels.“People ask me how it is that I’m so versatile,” he once said. “But I say, ‘I’m not versatile. I just don’t see limits. To me all music is one music… The biggest difference between me and composers of the 19th century is that I embrace two art forms that didn’t exist then, jazz and movies.”

In 2008 Schifrin wrote an autobiography, Mission Impossible: My Life in Music. He had a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was a Chevalier of the French Order of Arts and Letters, and held the position of adviser on cultural affairs to the Argentinian government. In 1988 he was given a lifetime achievement award by the BMI and in 2018 Clint Eastwood presented him with an Academy Honorary Award "in recognition of his unique musical style, compositional integrity and influential contributions to the art of film scoring."

Schifrin died from complications of pneumonia at a hospital in Los Angeles, on June 26, 2025, at the age of 93.

(Edited from Telegraph obit & Wikipedia)

Anne Murray born June 20, 1945

Anne Murray (born June 20, 1945) is a Canadian retired country, pop and adult contemporary music singer who has sold over 55 million album copies worldwide during her over 40-year career.

Born Morna Anne Murray in Nova Scotia, music was always one of Murray's hobbies. While she was enrolled at the University of New Brunswick studying physical education, she auditioned for a spot on the Halifax-based weekly CBC television series, Singalong Jubilee, but she wasn't hired because they already had an alto singer. Following that rejection, Murray graduated from college and began teaching physical education at the high-school level. Two years after her initial Singalong Jubilee audition, the show's producer, Bill Langstroth, called her with the information that a new television show, Let's Go, needed an altoist. After some persuasion, Murray agreed to join the program, although she did not give up her teaching job. For the next four years, she sang on Let's Go, eventually striking up a professional relationship with the program's musical director Brian Ahern, who recommended she pursue a solo singing career.

Murray left her teaching job and moved into the limelight through national broadcasts, quickly establishing herself as a fan favourite with solo spots on Singalong Jubilee until 1970. In these early years, Murray sang barefoot and accompanied herself on guitar. Encouraged and produced by Brian Ahern, Murray made her solo recording debut with the folk album What About Me (1968) for the Canadian label Arc Records. The record was well-received and popular for an independent album, thereby earning the attention of Capitol, whose Canadian division signed her to a long-term contract in 1969. The following year, her debut single for the label, "Snowbird," became an international hit, reaching the Top Ten on both the country and pop charts in America, while reaching the British Top 40. Following the success of "Snowbird," Murray moved to Los Angeles, where she began to regularly appear on Glen Campbell's syndicated television show. However, she didn't like the California lifestyle and quickly returned to Canada.

                                  

Capitol Records released Murray’s second solo album, This Way Is My Way, in 1969, and her first hit single, Gene MacLellan’s “Snowbird,” in 1970. Murray’s recording of “Snowbird” typified what would become her characteristic crossover sound: part country, part pop, part adult contemporary. The song was a massive hit, reaching No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart and making Murray the first Canadian woman to earn a gold record in the United States. “Snowbird” sold more than 1 million copies in 1970 alone and earned Murray two Grammy Award nominations. Murray’s recognizability increased after she made her US national television debut on 4 October 1970 on The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, where she became a frequent guest. In October 1970, CBC TV aired the first of many Anne Murray specials. Her reputation as a country singer was further entrenched through appearances on Nashville North (The Ian Tyson Show) and The Johnny Cash Show.

Although she became well known in the United States, Murray continued to base her career in Canada. By 1971, she had moved from Nova Scotia to Toronto, but she resisted a permanent move to the United States even though she performed in that country frequently, e.g., opening for Glen Campbell’s concerts and appearing in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Also in 1971, she made her first tour of Western Canada (to sold-out shows) as well as her debut at Massey Hall in Toronto (four shows over two days). However, the frequency of her television appearances and concerts led to speculation that Murray was becoming overexposed and that an absence of focused planning was damaging her career. Also, by the early 1970s she had followed up “Snowbird” with a string of largely unsuccessful singles and badly needed a hit. She toured Europe and North America in 1972.

Murray began to update her image in an attempt to place her more firmly in the pop genre. In 1973, she found the hit she needed with “Danny’s Song,” which spent two weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart and earned a Grammy nomination. She also opened for Glen Campbell in Europe. Then in 1974, she received a Grammy Award for best female country vocal performance for “A Love Song.” That recording reached No. 5 on Billboard’s country chart and No. 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. Also that year, “Send A Little Love My Way,” which she sang for the film Oklahoma Crude, was nominated for a Golden Globe. She was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1975.

Murray entered her period of greatest commercial success in 1978, as a cover of "Walk Right Back" climbed to number four on the country charts, followed shortly afterward by "You Needed Me," her biggest hit since "Songbird"; the single reached number four on the country charts and topped the pop charts, going gold by the end of the year. For the next eight years, she had a virtually uninterrupted string of Top Ten country hits, highlighted by nine number ones. She prospered during the era of urban cowboy, since her music drew as much from pop and easy listening as it did from country.

Anne with Willie Nelson

Murray's sales began to decline in the latter half of the '80s, primarily due to the shifting tastes of the country audience, which was beginning to seek out harder-edged new traditionalist performers. Nevertheless, she maintained a dedicated following during the late '80s and '90s through her occasional recordings ("Feed This Fire" became a surprise Top Ten hit in the summer of 1990) and her concerts. Murray recorded her first live album in 1997 and released What a Wonderful World in 1999. Five years later, she released I'll Be Seeing You in Canada; the album arrived in the United States as All of Me in 2005. 

Anne with Tina Turner

Murray returned in 2007 with Duets: Friends and Legends. Murray went on her last concert tour in early 2008 and gave her final public performance in Toronto in May 2008. She also appeared that year as a mentor on the Canadian Idol television show. In 2009, she published her memoir, All of Me, and in 2010 she was a flag-bearer for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver. She remains retired from the music business.

Anne at the JUNO Awards 2025

Murray had 28 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, eight No. 1 hits on the Adult Contemporary chart and 25 Top 10 hits on the Hot Country Songs chart. Named the Female Recording Artist of the 1970s by the Canadian Recording Industry Association, she has sold more than 55 million albums worldwide. She was nominated for or won a Juno Award every year but one from 1971 to 1995, winning 23 in total, more than any other artist. She has also won four Grammy Awards, nine Big Country Awards, two Canadian Country Music Association Awards and three American Music Awards. A Companion of the Order of Canada and a Member of the Order of Nova Scotia, she has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Canadian Country Music Association Hall of Fame, Canadian Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame and Canada’s Walk of Fame. Anne received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2025 JUNOS.

(Edited from The Canadian Encyclopedia & AllMusic) 

Sue Raney born June 18, 1940

Raelene Claire Claussen, known professionally as Sue Raney (born June 18, 1940, in McPherson, Kansas), is an American jazz singer. Raney was signed by Capitol Records in 1957 at age 17. That same year, she recorded her debut album, When Your Lover Has Gone, produced by Nelson Riddle.

Raney 1955

Blessed with a beautiful voice from an early age, Sue Raney has performed music ranging from swinging jazz and ballads to cabaret, middle-of-the-road pop and jingles. Her mother was a singer and a great great aunt had been in German opera. Raney started singing when she was four and a year later she first performed in public, at a party in Wichita, Kansas. Because a voice teacher could not be found for her daughter (because of her extreme youth), Raney's mother took voice lessons herself and then passed down what she learned to Sue. 

 

A professional before she was a teenager, Raney worked steadily in New Mexico when her family relocated and took several trips out to Los Angeles during a couple of summer vacations. She joined the Jack Carson radio show in 1954 in L.A. when she was barely 14.

Raney with Ray Anthony

Raney then appeared on Ray Anthony's television program and became his band's main vocalist. At 18 she started working as a single. She had already recorded for Phillips and then signed with Capitol, recording several middle-of-the-road jazz-influenced pop dates for the company. In 1960, Raney recorded, "Biology" , directed by Bill, which became Capitol's first single elevated to national promotion after introducing it in regional pre-testing that same year. Raney was featured with the Stan Kenton orchestra in 1962 on the hour-long television special Music of 1960s.

Raney with Nat King Cole

Throughout the 1960's Raney often appeared on television variety shows, she led her own group and became very active in the studios where her impressive voice helped sell products. Raney sang the theme song to the 1967 psychological thriller film Wait Until Dark, starring Audrey Hepburn. The song, bearing the title of the film, was composed by Henry Mancini, lyrics by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans.

Raney with Dean Martin

In the 1970s, she appeared on numerous TV variety shows. The Dean Martin Show, The Danny Kaye Show, The Red Skelton show, countless appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, The Joey Bishop Late Show, and The Mike Douglas Show. She also appeared with Henry Mancini on a PBS Special that included such stars as Julie Andrews, Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis and Steve Allen…among others. She did appearances with Bob Hope, Don Rickles and Bob Newhart, with the latter two in the Las Vegas main showrooms. She toured and sang with the Four Freshmen in the late '60's and early '70's. By the early 1980's, she was also working as a voice teacher.

Raney voiced Patti Bear in The Great Bear Scare (1983), an animated Halloween sequel to The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas. Her single "Early Morning Blues and Greens" was played on easy-listening stations, peaking at No. 16 on the Billboard magazine MOR chart. She sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Dodger Stadium before the sixth game of the 1978 World Series. At the time, she was married to Ed Yelin of Capitol Records. She also performed on three albums titled Supersax and LA Voices, Vol. 1 (1983), Vol. 2 (1984), and Vol. 3 (1986). The LA Voices of Volume 1 received a Grammy nomination for the 26th Annual Grammy Awards in the category "Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Duo or Group".

Raney with Carmen Fanzone

In the 1990's Sue Raney has sung with the L.A. Voices and Supersax, the Bill Watrous big band and as a single in addition to staying active as a jazz educator and in the studios. Her main jazz recordings were a trio of albums for Discovery in the 1980's; a VSOP/Studio West CD features the singer on various live performances from the 1960's. In more recent times, she has been performing with the Pops conductor, Richard Kaufman, doing symphony concerts in the U.S. She has also toured with Michel Legrand and performed in numerous jazz festival in the U.S. and abroad. When not performing, she was a vocal coach, and taught from her home in Sherman Oaks, where she resided with her husband, Carmen Fanzone. 

Retired now, Raney can look back on her career with satisfaction and gratitude for the chances she was given at such an early age. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, AllMusic, Jazz Journal & her official Website)

Mildred Anderson born circa 1928/29)

Mildred Anderson (born circa 1928/29) was a criminally overlooked, and now completely unjustly forgotten, excellent Brooklyn American jazz, blues and R&B singer who built a reputation in the New York  clubs during the second half of the 1940s.

Albert Ammons

Blues shouter Mildred Anderson is barely known today and there is hardly any information about her on the web, not even a birthdate. Like many other blues singers before her, she is a product of a succession of glee clubs and choral groups, the most notable of which was the Antioch Baptist Church. After graduation from the Girls High School in Brooklyn, New York in 1946. she was a night club singer for several years. Mildred first gained visibility when she recorded Doin' the Boogie Woogie with pianist Albert Ammons for Mercury on April 8, 1946. In 1947 she performed at Kinney Club, Newark, New Jersey. She sang I Ain't Mad At you at the Masonic Temple, Newark at a New Year’s Eve show in 1947. 

Hot Lips Page

Later, she worked and recorded with Hot Lips Page in 1951 and remained with the outfit for over a year, making innumerable raod trips and did many night club and theatre dates in New York, Philadelphia and Washington. In 1953 she joined organist Bill Doggett and his band where she enjoyed her greatest recording success with "No More In Life"" which sold in excess of 100,000 copies. Once during her club performance with the Doggett Trio, she was constantly shouted at and insulted by two hecklers. Mildred walked off the stage wordless in the middle of the song and quickly dealt with the two cheeky men. With the help of grabs she learned from her brother, who was then serving Uncle Sam in the Marines, she knocked the rioters to the ground and pacified them completely. Then she handed them over to the care of the club's security.

                                 

A friend from Mildred's school days Hortense Allen, produced shows at Club Harlem, near corner Arctic and Kentucky Avenues, Atlantic City, New Jersey, commencing 23 June 1955, featuring Mildred Anderson and Jimmy Tyler. Club Harlem was owned by Leroy Williams. In July 1955 "Jet" reported that Mildred and Baltimore bandleader Arthur Garner were exchanging wedding vows in front of ringsiders at the Club Harlem where she was working, but then Mildred battled serious health complications for four long years, but by April 1960, she was completely healthy and announced hers comeback in great singing form through the press.By this time, she had already prepared for release her solo debut album, Person To Person (Prestige-Bluesville Records), on which she was accompanied by tenor saxophonist Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis's band, including Shirley Scott on organ. It was recorded in a single day on January 22, 1960, produced by Esmond Edwards at the famous Englewood Cliffs Studios, and behind the mixing desk sat none other than the owner of the studio, the famous sound engineer Rudy Van Gelder.

In September 1960, Mildred enters Rudy Van Gelder's New Jersey studio kingdom for the second time. Backed by an Al Sears group, under the producer supervision of Ozzie Cadena, recordings were made for Mildred's second, and unfortunately also last, solo LP No More In Life (1961, Prestige-Bluesville Records). Mildred and Hortense worked together at the Key Club, 1325 Washington Street, Minneapolis, Minnesota during April 1961, backed by Gene "Bowlegs" Miller and his band. In April 1961, she appears in Minneapolis. Accompanied by Gene Miller's orchestra, she sings on the stage of the local Key Club. Five months later, she married Philadelphia businessman Bob Freeman.

In July 1962 Mildred gave a concert in Montreal and finished the performance with big problems. She lost her voice and had to withdraw from the music industry. At the end of 1970, having recovered her voice, accepts an invitation to perform as a guest at Cyrus Scott’s Sahara Supper Club, Philadelphia. After this she faded into obscurity--in fact, into oblivion. I was unable to gather more information including dates of birth and possible death, but her former partner, bandleader Arthur Garner, died in 2011 surrounded by the loving care of his five children and several grandchildren. Whether any of the children were the fruit of their relationship with Mildred is again unclear.

(Patchy information edited from Blues Encyclopedia, Album liner notes, cernejpudink.cz & Wikipedia)