Jeannie Seely born July 6, 1940

Jeannie Seely (July 6, 1940 – August 1, 2025) was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and author who broke barriers for women in Country Music with her bold style, emotional depth and trailblazing presence on the Grand Ole Opry. Seely's musical style categorized and identified with the country genre, while also incorporating elements of pop and soul. Critics and writers named her "Miss Country Soul," a title used throughout her career spanning seven decades due to not only her style, but also her emotional vocal performances. 

Born Marilyn Jeanne Seely in Titusville, Pennsylvania, she was drawn to music at an early age. After singing at local dances, talent shows, and on the radio, Seely decided to pursue music professionally after graduating high school. Moving to Los Angeles in 1961, she worked as a secretary at Imperial Records, becoming a professional songwriter in her spare time and earning a promotion to professional songwriter. Her first break arrived in 1964, when Irma Thomas took "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)" -- a song she co-wrote with Randy Newman, as well as Judith Arbuckle and Pat Sheeran -- into Billboard's R&B Top 40; on its flipside was "Time Is on My Side," a song the Rolling Stones would soon turn into a standard.

Signing with Challenge Records, Seely released a pair of singles for the label in 1965, "What Am I Doing in Your World" and "Bring It on Back," but her primary success came as a songwriter. Country singers especially were drawn to her material, leading Seely to move to Nashville later in 1965. Aligning herself with Hank Cochran, Seely received a big break when she was hired to step into the vacancy left by Norma Jean, Porter Wagoner's partner on television and stage. Shortly afterward, she signed with Monument Records.

                                   

"Don't Touch Me," a song written by Hank Cochran, appeared in March 1966 and became a runaway hit, climbing to two on Billboard's Country chart while also scraping the bottom of the Hot 100. It'd win the Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance and help Seely become a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1967; she was the first singer to wear a mini-skirt on the Opry stage. By that point, she had racked up two additional Country Top 20 hits in "It's Only Love" and "A Wanderin' Man." Early in 1968, she once again reached the Top Ten thanks to "I'll Love You More (Than You Need)." Seely married songwriter Hank Cochran June 15, 1969, in Renfro Valley, Kentucky, in a church ceremony. Around 1975, the couple built a home set on a farm with 77 acres of property in Hendersonville, Tennessee, but in the late 1970s, the couple separated and officially filed for divorce in 1979. 

Seely's busy solo career led her to part ways with Wagoner, as he had replace her with Dolly Parton, and she left Monument for Decca in 1969, where she collaborated with producer Owen Bradley. "Wish I Didn't Have to Miss You," her first big hit for the label, was a duet with Jack Greene that reached number two early in 1970. Seely and Greene reteamed a few times during the early '70s, reaching the charts in 1972 with "Much Oblige" and "What in the World Has Gone Wrong with Our Love," singles which punctuated individual hits by Seely. Additionally, Seely continued to work as a songwriter; Faron Young took her "Leavin' and Sayin' Goodbye" to number one in 1972.

In 1973, Seely signed with MCA. "Can I Sleep in Your Arms," her first single for the label, was her last Top Ten hit, peaking at six. "Lucky Numbers" went to 11 early in 1974; later that year, "He Can Be Mine" became her last Top 40 hit on the Billboard Country charts. In June 1977, Seely was involved in a car collision in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, (located outside of Nashville) after her vehicle crashed into a tree. She was admitted to Nashville Memorial Hospital, suffering a fractured jaw, broken ribs, a punctured and collapsed lung. Upon arriving at the hospital, she was given same-day surgery to repair her lung. She was reported in "fair condition" and eventually recovered from her injuries. Friend Dottie West helped Seely following her hospital release, helping her when she was immobile and taking her on car rides for a change in scenery. Seely later reflected that the accident brought her a new appreciation for life. "You know, it sounds like a cliche, but it's true that your perspective changes when you have a close call, what you took for granted you come to appreciate more." Willie Nelson had her sing on the soundtrack to his 1980 film Honeysuckle Rose, then she re-teamed with Jack Greene in 1982 to re-record their old hits.

By the mid-'80s, Seely was concentrating on performances in Nashville -- she appeared regularly as a host at the Grand Ole Opry and played at her short-lived nightclub Jeannie Seely's Country Club, which morphed into regular TV appearances, particularly on the Nashville Network. Seely continued to balance the Opry and television throughout the '90s, dabbling in some acting work as well as an occasional stop in the recording studio. She released an eponymous independent album in 1990, then her first holiday set, Number One Christmas, in 1996. The covers album Been There…Sung That! arrived in 1999, followed by Life's Highway in 2003. Seely married Nashville attorney Gene Ward in 2010. In 2011 she released another covers album, Vintage Country: Old But Treasured, with Written in Song containing a collection of songs she wrote for other artists, following in 2017. The 2020 album An American Classic combined re-recordings of her hits with covers of songs from the likes of Sammy Cahn, Roger Miller, and Paul McCartney. She was also nominated for four CMA Awards, and in 2023 she was presented with the CMA Joe Talbot Award, which is awarded in recognition of outstanding leadership and contributions to the preservation and advancement of Country Music’s values and tradition.

In 2024, Seely was hospitalized in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after suffering from "acute diverticulitis" and "dehydration" on a trip to her hometown. She was later released and was reportedly "doing well". Her husband Gene Ward died on December 13, 2024, after a recent cancer diagnosis. As of her last Grand Ole Opry show on February 22, 2025, Seely had made 5,397 Opry performances, more than any other artist in the Opry’s 100-year history. Seely’s last public appearance was on March 1, 2025, when she attended the rebranded opening of the Legends of Country Music Museum located in Nashville’s Music Valley area. In May 2025, Seely said that she had multiple surgeries since March of that year, had later contracted pneumonia, and was undergoing rehabilitation. Seely died of an intestinal infection on August 1, 2025, at the age of 85. At the time of her death, she was hospitalized at TriStar Summit Medical Centre in Hermitage, Tennessee.

Throughout her career, Seely spearheaded efforts to support and enhance artist, musician, and songwriter roles in the music industry, especially paving the way for females who followed. Instrumental in instilling an atmosphere of fellowship and camaraderie at the Grand Ole Opry – and in any music circle she entered – Seely connected with artists, musicians, songwriters, and industry personnel from all generations and backgrounds.

(Edited from AllMusic, Country Music Association, Wikipedia & Fayfare's Opry Blog)  

Owen Gray born 5 July 1939

Owen Gray OD (5 July 1939 – 20 July 2025), also known as Owen Grey, was a Jamaican musician. His work spans the R&B, ska, rocksteady, and reggae eras of Jamaican music, and he has been credited as Jamaica's first home-grown singing star.

Gray seemed destined for stardom at an early age, born in Kingston, he showed an affinity for music and a love of singing very early in life, winning his first talent contest at the age of nine and also distinguishing himself in the local church choir, where he sang first tenor (and his mother played piano). His father was a career military man, but the younger Gray set his sights on music as a career early on, and by his teens he was an experienced singer and performer -- he attended the Alpha School, whose other alumni included such future legends as Tommy McCook and Dizzy Johnny Moore, and by 19 he was ready to turn professional.

In a sense, Gray and his contemporaries could not have timed their lives and careers better, as Jamaica's musical life was ready to bloom -- the world was already listening to the sounds of calypso music in the late '50s, initially by way of Trinidad (and pioneering figures such as Sir Lancelot) and more recently by such island-descended figures as Harry Belafonte and Lord Burgess, and Jamaica, which was already moving toward independence from Great Britain, was about to experience a cultural renaissance as well. 

Gray's breakthrough came in 1960 when he recorded "Please Don't Let Me Go" with the Caribs (including guitarist Ernest Ranglin on his first recording session) for a young would-be record producer from England named Chris Blackwell, who had begun to dabble in Jamaican music in between deciding what he wanted to do with his life. Released in Jamaica, it hit the top chart spot on the island, and the record was also issued in England through the jazz label Esquire, and sold surprisingly well -- a fact undoubtedly noted by Blackwell, who began to suspect around this time that there were enough Jamaican émigrés in England to make a viable business of recording and releasing music aimed at them.

                       

Back in Kingston, Gray found himself in high demand, and his voice was quickly captured -- working in idioms from rock & roll to American-style R&B -- on tape by producers Leslie Kong, Prince Buster, Duke Reid, and, most importantly, Coxsone Dodd, who was just starting up his legendary Studio One label at the time; Gray's "On the Beach" (which featured local trombone virtuoso Don Drummond) was among the very earliest releases on that label. It was also a group of sides that he cut for Coxsone Dodd that resulted in Gray becoming the first solo Jamaican artist to have an LP of Jamaican popular music (as opposed to calypso music and folk songs) released in England -- the Esquire imprint Starlite Records combined a bunch of them in 1961 as Owen Gray Sings, which was also released in Jamaica; the album never sold even moderately well, but it was a beginning, and soon he had competing London labels issuing different tracks. With advance work like that going on without his direct input, he could hardly resist the opportunity to take the leap to the next career step, and cultivate a London audience from London, and in the spring of 1962 he moved there.

Gray recorded for Melodisc, which had previously licensed some of his Jamaican sides, and he was soon established in London, finding a large and serious club audience. He toured Europe in 1964, doing mostly soul music, and also signed with Blackwell's now established Island Records label. By 1966 he was well known in England as a soul singer as well as for his ska and reggae sides, and made the switch to rocksteady easily enough, cutting sides for producer Sir Clancy Collins, and also licensing some songs to the new Trojan Records label -- his versions of the ballads "These Foolish Things" and "Always" reflected the soft ballad style for which he was known at the time. He enjoyed some further success fronting the Maximum Band (on the Fab Records imprint of Melodisc) with the ballad "Cupid," which charted in 1968. He also found favour with the early skinheads, thanks to a jump beat-driven tune called "Apollo 12" that was released in 1970, even as he continued to keep his hand in ballads with releases such as "Three Coins in the Fountain."

Gray moved to the Pama label in 1968, releasing his sides on their Camel Records imprint, which included "Woman a Grumble" and his version of King Floyd's "Groove Me." By 1972 he was back with Island Records, where his reggae versions of the Rolling Stones' "Tumblin' Dice" and John Lennon's "Jealous Guy" were released to complete (and astonishing) indifference; strangely enough, one of his bigger successes around this time took place in Jamaica, where his "Hail the Man" -- a single praising the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie -- was embraced by the burgeoning Rasta audience. Gray briefly tried basing himself in New Orleans -- not surprising since his early idols included Fats Domino -- and then returned to Jamaica, where he found fresh inspiration in the booming demand for roots reggae. During the mid-'70s, working with producer Edward "Bunny" Lee, he saw success on both sides of the Atlantic as a mainstay of the roots reggae movement.

Since the 1970s Gray's career has waxed and waned, and he had returned to singing ballads by the 1990s. With the passing of his 40th anniversary as a professional musician in 1998, however, Gray had once more risen to stardom around the world, a fact confirmed by his international engagements and the release in 2004 of Shook, Shimmy & Shake: The Anthology, a double-CD set that spans a significant  chunk of his career. The new millennium has seen Gray continue to focus on ballads as well as gospel material, including 2004's Jesus Loves Me on the True Gospel label. In 2023, Gray was awarded the Jamaican Order of Distinction, in recognition of his contributions to the nation's music industry. Two years later, Owen Gray died on July 20, 2025 at the age of 86. Writing, recording, and performing to the end, Owen Gray’s life represents an incredible chapter in the birth and formation of Jamaican music, and a contributing factor in its International success.

(Edited from AllMusic, Wikipedia & Clash Music)

Marion Worth born July 4, 1930

Marion Worth (July 4, 1930* - December 19, 1999) was an American country music singer professionally known as "Lady" Marion Worth, for her dignified manner and soft, melodic voice. She was a popular performer on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee during the 1960's and early 1970s.

Born Mary Ann Ward, she was the daughter of a railroad worker who taught her to play piano. She won a local talent contest for five weeks straight as a 10-year-old, but did not then plan on pursuing a career in music. Instead she prepared for a nursing career at the Paul Hayne School. While there she continued to perform in talent contests, sometimes joined by her sister. A local record company hired her as a bookkeeper and she began to set her sights on singing professionally.

Ward made her radio debut on Dallas, Texas' KLIF-AM. She then returned to Birmingham and worked at WVOK-AM and WAPI-AM. She also appeared on WAPI-TV (Channel 13). During that time she met Happy Wilson, leader of the Golden River Boys. He became quite impressed with her singing and brought her with him to Huntsville to perform on WBHP-AM. He and Slim Lay brought her into the recording studio and scored a hit with her first single.

                                 

"Are You Willing, Willie?" was Worth's own composition. It was released as the flip side of a cover of Wilson's "This Heart of Mine" on Huntsville's Cherokee Records in 1959. The track was picked up on radio and peaked at #12 on the country music charts. Her 1960 follow-up on Guyden Records, "That's My Kind of Love" reached #5 and brought her to the attention of Nashville's Jack Stapp, who signed her on to appear on WSM-AM's "Friday Night Frollic" as well as to Columbia Records. She was named one of the Top Ten Most Promising Female Vocalists of 1960 by Cashbox magazine. 

Her first Columbia single, "I Think I Know", produced by Don Law and Frank Jones, peaked at #7 in 1961. It was followed by "There'll Always Be Sadness", which peaked at #21. She married Happy Wilson who by that time ran his own music company out of Nashville until Capitol Records hired him to manage their operations there. Worth's popularity waned for nearly two years until the song "Shake Me I Rattle (Squeeze Me I Cry)" brought her back to the Top 15 on the country charts and also crossed over into Top 50 pop music sales, earning radio play as an easy listening and Christmas tune due to its theme of toys and giving. Her cover of Ray Price's "Crazy Arms" also reached the Top 20 in 1963 and she joined the regular cast of the Grand Ole Opry before the year was out.

Three of Worth's 1964 releases broke the Top 40, "You Took Him Off My Hands (Now Please Take Him Off My Mind)" reached #33 and was followed by "Slipping Around" (a duet with George Morgan, #23), and "The French Song" (#25). She ended her Columbia years with the 1966 single "I Will Blow Out The Light" which peaked at #32. In 1967 Worth signed with Decca Records and provided them with two Top 100 singles, "A Woman Needs Love" (#64, 1967) and "Mama Sez" (#45, 1968). Worth's success on the country music charts waned after 1968. 

Her hobby was to study the history of the world, which she focused a lot of time on after her chart success faded away. However, Worth didn't stop performing. Her ability to change from sultry ballads to lively barn dance-type numbers made her a popular performer on the Grand Ole Opry, where she was deemed a singer’s singer, and she was one of the first country stars to play Carnegie Hall in New York. She continued to tour in the USA and Canada and, in later years, became a popular performer in various Las Vegas venues until her death. 

On Sunday, December 19, 1999, Worth died in Nashville, Tennessee at the Tennessee Christian Medical Center from complications of emphysema. She was 69 years old, and was survived by a daughter, Joyce.

(Edited from Wikipedia & Rocky52)(*Some sources give her birth year as 1935) 

Janette Carter born July 2, 1923

Janette Carter (July 2, 1923 – January 22, 2006), was the last surviving member of country's immortal Carter Family, championing the cause of traditional American roots music into the 21st century. 

Janette Carter was born in Maces Springs, Virgina and was the youngest daughter of A.P. and Sara Carter Jeanette learned autoharp from her mother and at age twelve began appearing with the Family who signed with RCA Victor producer/talent scout Ralph Peer in 1927. Over the course of classics like "Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow," "Keep on the Sunny Side," and "No Depression," the Carters introduced the pure, poignant harmonies and intricate melodies that would define country & western for decades to follow, establishing the trio as the most influential group in roots music history. 

Three Carter recording sessions took place in Charlotte. The first two were arranged by RCA Victor in May of 1931; the final session was undertaken in June of 1938 for Decca Records. Twenty-nine sides were recorded in all.Despite their commercial success A.P. and Sara Carter divorced in 1932. Seven years later, Sara married A.P.'s cousin Coy Bayes and relocated to California, taking her children with her. The year 1938 proved to be especially successful for the Carters. 

They were hired by Consolidated Drug Trade Products—the Chicago-based maker of Peruna tonic, Kolorbak hair dye, and Radio Girl perfume—and sent to Texas where they broadcast daily over high-wattage border radio stations just inside Mexico. The border stations reached much of North America and introduced the Carters to hundreds of thousands of new fans. By the late 1930s Jeanette and her bother Joe were regularly adding their voices to the Carter Family broadcasts on border radio and over WBT. Along the way she helped her father gather traditional tunes from rural singers. A. P. would write down the words and Janette would commit the tunes to memory. “She was my tape recorder,” A. P. is quoted as saying proudly.

A.P. & Sara Carter with Janette and Joe

When not broadcasting on border radio, Consolidated Drug brought the Carter Family back to powerful 50,000-watt WBT in Charlotte. A Charlotte Observer radio listing for June 1939 indicates that the Carters were then broadcasting a “farm time” show with announcer Grady Cole each weekday morning, and a second half-hour program every afternoon. This schedule seems to have continued into early 1940 when the family returned to Texas for more broadcasts and transcriptions. Historians report that the family returned to Charlotte in late 1941 or early 1942 for a final six months of work for WBT. It was then that the Carter Family concluded its recording career, but in 1952 both A.P. and Sara agreed to a comeback, enlisting Janette and her brother Joe before signing to the Acme label to record some 100 songs over the next four years.  

                                  

Following her father's 1960 death, Janette, who was at the time an elementary school cook, dedicated her life to preserving their music and legacy, hosting informal music programs at A.P.'s Poor Valley, Virgina, retail store. Although she never earned the commercial or critical acclaim awarded her sister June Carter Cash, Janette also mounted a solo career, in 1972 releasing her debut LP, Storms Are on the Ocean, on the tiny Birch label. Howdayadoo followed on Traditional Records a year later. 

In 1976 she established the Hiltons, VA-based Carter Family Fold, a nonprofit amphitheater and museum site built from old railroad ties and school bus seats dedicated to the old-time music of rural Appalachia. Despite the Fold's strict adherence to traditional acoustic music, Janette eventually eased her restrictions in order to allow her brother-in-law Johnny Cash to play an electric set. 

She directed the centre and served as master of ceremonies and performer at the Saturday night shows, often accompanied by her brother Joe. She toured in the United States and abroad, appeared on radio and TV and was recognized as a living musical treasure. But by all accounts she remained an unaffected country woman who called everybody, including former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, “honey.”

Carter told a Washington Post reporter in 1989 that a visitor to the center had once asked her what she was striving for. “That’s when it hit me,” she said. “I’m not striving for anything. I’ve reached it.” Carter continued hosting weekly concerts at the Fold into her eighties, and in 2004 the Bear Family label assembled Deliverance Will Come, compiling the entirety of her slim solo output. For a long time she battled Parkinson's disease and other illnesses, then after a fall she was taken to the Holston Valley Medical Center, Kingsport, Tennessee,  where she died on January 22, 2006 at the age of 82 years.

She was 82 years old. She was buried next to her mother, Sara Carter Bayes, and her brother, Joe, at the Mount Vernon United Methodist Church Cemetery in Maces Spring.

Carter is a recipient of a 2005 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States' highest honour in the folk and traditional arts, in recognition for her lifelong advocacy for the performance and preservation of Appalachian music.

(Edited from AllMusic, Wikipedia, History South & Masters of Traditional Arts)

Willie Dixon born July 1, 1915

Willie Dixon (July 1, 1915 – January 29, 1992) was a well-known American blues bassist, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He wrote or co-wrote more than 500 songs.

William James Dixon was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 1, 1915. He was one of 14 children. His mother, Daisy, often rhymed things she said, a habit her son imitated. At the age of seven, young Dixon became an admirer of a band that featured pianist Little Brother Montgomery. He sang his first song at Springfield Baptist Church at the age of four. Dixon was introduced to blues when he served time on prison farms in Mississippi as a young teenager. Later in his teens, he learned to sing harmony from a local carpenter, Theo Phelps, who led a gospel quintet, the Union Jubilee Singers, in which Dixon sang bass; the group regularly performed on the Vicksburg radio station WQBC. He began adapting his poems into songs and even sold some to local music groups.

Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. Around 1939, he became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money. Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin-can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar.

The Big Three Trio

In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. They recorded eight numbers for the Bluebird record label. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records. On the road, they are a huge success on a circuit that takes in the Mid-West and the northern states.

                                  

Dixon signed with Chess Records as a recording artist, but he began performing less, being more involved with administrative tasks for the label. By 1951, he was a full-time employee at Chess, where he acted as producer, talent scout, session musician and staff songwriter. He was also a producer for the Chess subsidiary Checker Records. His relationship with Chess was sometimes strained, but he stayed with the label from 1948 to the early 1960s. During this time Dixon's output and influence were prodigious.

From late 1956 to early 1959, he worked in a similar capacity for Cobra Records, for which he produced early singles for Otis Rush, Magic Sam, and Buddy Guy. In 1956, Dixon wrote "Fishin' in My Pond", which was recorded by Lee Jackson, and released on Cobra in February 1957. His double bass playing was of a high standard. He appears on many of Chuck Berry's early recordings, further proving his linkage between the blues and the birth of rock 'n' roll. He records his first LP in 1959, Willie's Blues, for the Bluesville Record label and in 1960 he provides Howlin' Wolf with the songs 'Wang Dang Doodle', Back Door Man', 'Spoonful' and 'The Red Rooster'. During this time his output and influence was prodigious. Indeed, he once claimed "I am the blues." This may seem a little arrogant, but there is no doubt that he was one of the major influences on the genre, through his original and varied song writing, live performances, recording, and copious production work.

From the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, Dixon ran his own record label, Yambo Records, and two subsidiary labels, Supreme and Spoonful. He released his 1971 album, Peace?, on Yambo and also singles by McKinley Mitchell, Lucky Peterson and others. In 1977, unhappy with the small royalties paid by Chess's publishing company, Arc Music, Dixon and Muddy Waters sued Arc and later Dixon founded his own publishing company, Hoochie Coochie Music. Dixon's health increasingly deteriorated during the 1970s and the 1980s, primarily as a result of long-term diabetes. Eventually one of his legs was amputated. Dixon was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, in the inaugural session of the Blues Foundation's ceremony. In 1982 he set up the Blues Heaven Foundation to aid young musicians. He had bypass surgery in 1987 and in 1989 he received a Grammy Award for his album Hidden Charms.

Dixon died of heart failure on January 29, 1992, in Burbank, California. His body was carried by a horse-drawn hearse through where he grew up. He was buried in Burr Oak Cemetery, in Alsip, Illinois. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 and also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2015.

(Edited from Wikipedia & Discogs) 

Ann Gilbert born June 30, 1933.

Ann Gilbert (June 30, 1933 - October 25, 2012) was an American Jazz-pop singer from the 1950s.

Born Ann Elizabeth Gilbert she began singing in church at the age of four, and by ten, she was a regular on the radio program Young America Sings. She acted and sang in summer stock musicals and seemed destined for a career in classical music when jazz beckoned. Gilbert studied classical music at Lindenwood College for Women in St. Charles, MO. 

                                 

She began improvising at the piano and preferred experimenting with music rather than the formality of classical study. Gilbert began singing in clubs, working as her own accompanist, and began building a reputation at clubs in Indianapolis and Chicago.

In 1956, she got her big chance to record when she was signed to Groove Records by a talent scout passing through Chicago. The result was her first album, The Many Moods Of Ann, on which she was accompanied by the Elliot Lawrence Orchestra. Pianist and bandleader Elliot Lawrence also did the arrangements; her accompanists included Al Cohn on tenor sax and clarinet; Hal McKusick on alto, clarinet, and flute; Sam Marowitz on alto and clarinet; and Osie Johnson on drums. She went on to do a second album, where she had much more artistic freedom, In A Swingin' Mood. 

After her marriage to producer / director Stuart Ostrow in 1957, she had her daughter, Julie Elizabeth, and retired from professional singing. She went on to adopt Katherine Ann and John Stuart. Throughout her children's childhood, she taught at every school and church that they were enrolled in. 

Ann went on to coach at The University of Houston in Texas, where many a frustrated classical singer would sneak into her studio and be schooled on the great American Songbook. She died after a heroic battle with aspiration pneumonia on October 25, 2012 (79 years of age).

(Scarce information mainly edited from Discogs) 

Leonard Lee born June 29,1935

Leonard Lee (June 29,1935 - October 23,1976) was an American R&B singer, who came to prominence as one half of 1950's duo, Shirley and Lee.

Shirley Goodman and Leonard Lee were bororn ten days apart, they met when they were children, and both of them sang in their Baptist church in New Orleans. They were discovered by studio owner Cosimo Matassa, who heard Goodman and Lee as part of the Joseph Clark High School singing group when they were thirteen years old. Matassa got Aladdin Records owner Eddie Messner interested in pairing them as a duo, and New Orleans veteran producer Dave Bartholomew produced their first recording, “I’m Gone,” in 1952, and backed the teenaged singers with many of the most skilled session musicians in New Orleans at the time, including saxophonists Alvin “Red” Tyler, Herb Hardesty and Lee Allen, bassist Frank Fields, and drummer Earl Palmer.

                                  

“I’m Gone” climbed to No. 2 on the rhythm and blues charts in 1952. The record contrasted Goodman's soprano with Leonard's baritone. This success was followed by a string of other duets, including “Shirley, Come Back to Me,” “Shirley’s Back,” and “The Proposal,” backed with “Two Happy People.” These songs gave Shirley and Lee their stage name, and each new release continued the saga of these presumed teenage sweethearts, which added to the duo’s popularity, though they were never romantically involved.

In their early songs, they pretended as if they were sweethearts and were dubbed "the Sweethearts of the Blues". Still just teenagers when they found success, Goodman's grandmother chaperoned her while they toured with Big Mama Thorton as her opening act. Nightclubs often stopped serving alcohol when they performed due to their age. Although both Shirley and Lee sang, theirs was often a call-and-response style rather than a two-part harmony.

Flagging sales prompted Shirley and Lee to change their song topics, starting with “Feels So Good” in 1955. In 1957 they released their most popular song, the anthem “Let the Good Times Roll,” which sold over a million copies and was awarded a gold disc. The song was considered too suggestive by many radio stations, and they banned it from their airwaves. Although a follow-up single, "I Feel Good". also made the charts. The duo's later releases were less successful, and the pair moved to the Warwick label in 1959, followed by Imperial Records in 1962. The duo never equalled their biggest hit, and broke up in 1963.

Leonard made some subsequent solo records with little success. In the mid 1960's Goodman moved to California, where she worked as a session singer on records by Sonny & Cher, Dr. John and others, and also formed a duo for a time with Jesse Hill. She sang backing vocals on the Rolling Stones' Exile On Main Street album, but then briefly retired from the music industry.

On October 15,1971 Shirley & Lee were reunited for one show only at the Madison Square Garden in New York City. The playbill included musicians of the early rock era, including Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Bobby Rydell.

Lee eventually returned to school, earned a degree in social work, and worked for a government poverty agency as a social worker. He died of a heart attack in New Orleans on October 23,1976 aged 40, and was buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery and Mausoleum in New Orleans. In 1994, Shirley suffered a stroke and moved back to California to live with her son. She died there at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles on July 5th of this year. She was 69 years old.

(Edited from Discogs & WBSS Media)