Tony De La Rosa born 31 October 1931

Antonio de la Rosa (October 31, 1931– June 2, 2004) was a major innovator in the field of conjunto music. A dynamic accordionist known as " El Conde" ("The Count"), he revolutionised the music of the Texas-Mexico borderlands by introducing electric amplification to a previously acoustic dance form and, in doing so, ushered in a modern era for "Tex-Mex" that saw it gain international popularity.He was noted for producing dynamic and harmonic accordion runs on the two-row button accordion.

He was born, one of 12 children, in the small town of Sarita, Texas, and his earliest memories of music were of his mother playing the harmonica on the family's front porch. Inspired by the accordionist Narciso Martinez, at the age of nine he acquired his first accordion, a $9 one-row model purchased from a Sears catalogue. He remembered: I would sit on the porch making everyone mad, learning to play "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" and "Old McDonald Had a Farm". I would play around the rancho for little gatherings, little birthday parties on patios, anywhere there was shade. I made my début at a dance hall in Riviera. Then I played for dances and weddings around south Texas. I spent a lot of time with my accordion on one side of me and the shoeshine box on the other.

De la Rosa was inspired by some of the earlier conjunto pioneers such as Narciso Martínez and Santiago Jiménez, but western swing and honky-tonk music also had an impact on his professional career. In fact De la Rosa was so fond of country music that by the time he was a teenager, he was playing with country bands in small clubs around Kingsville. 

Many of his earliest professional performances were as a member of a country band, but he turned increasingly to the music of the Hispanic community and, buoyed by his success, began to develop a unique sound that highlighted his staccato-like playing. He also introduced a new dance craze to conjunto music, the still popular tacuachito or "possum", with its fluid gliding movements.

                              

In 1949, De La Rosa made his first recording, featuring two polkas, "Sarita" and "Tres Ríos," for the Arco label in Alice, Texas. The next year he joined the Ideal label which he left in 1955 in order to lead his own band. In the mid-Fifties, De La Rosa added drums and the electric bajo sexto (12-string bass) to his band, later augmenting his line-up with a pair of saxophones. Although some purists were horrified, De La Rosa's innovations enabled conjunto outfits to play in larger venues and rapidly caught on. 

Many of his most characteristic numbers date from this era, including " El Circo" ("The Circus") - an adaptation of Red Foley's classic country hit "Alabama Jubilee" - " El Sube y Baja" ("The Ups and Downs"), " La Periodista" ("The Journalist"), " Los Frijoles Bailan" ("The Dancing Beans") and the classic " Atotonilco".

He often worked alongside other major names in the genre including Carmen and Laura Marroquin and the charismatic Isidro Lopez, and featured a string of lead singers including Joe Ramos, Cha Cha Jimenez and his own brother, Adan De La Rosa.

Over the decades that followed he cut scores of sides for regional labels, many of them later resurfacing on a series of Arhoolie conjunto compilations. In the 1990s he recorded a pair of acclaimed albums for Rounder: Así Se Baila en Tejas ("This is the Way They Dance in Texas", 1991) and Es Mi Derecho ("It's My Right", 1995), and in 2001 released a final disc, Mi Ultimo Beso ("My Last Kiss").

Conjunto De La Rosa, which has included two of the leader's brothers, has toured constantly all over the United States. It has recorded more than 75 albums and many single discs. In 1982, De La Rosa was inducted into the Tejano Conjunto Hall of Fame and six years later received a prestigious National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He remained modest about his achievements: "I don't know anything about music. I don't know one note from the other. I was completely self-taught."

Tony De La Rosa died in Corpus Christi, Texas on 2 June 2004. He was inducted posthumously into the Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame in San Benito in 2006.

(Edited from The Independent & Handbook Of Texas)

Jerry Adler born 30 October 1918

Hilliard Gerald Adler (October 30, 1918 – March 13, 2010) was an American harmonica player whose performances have been used in numerous film soundtracks. As well as working in films he performed in concerts and vaudeville all over the world.

A remarkable virtuoso, Jerry Adler never quite got the same level of acclaim as his older brother Larry. This was due, in part, to the fact that his most-recognized performances can be found on movie soundtracks, where his name, if it appeared at all, was buried somewhere deep in the fine-print credits.

The son of a plumber, Hilliard Gerald Adler was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He was inspired, no doubt, by his brother's example and began playing the harmonica at a young age. He got off to a flying start in the music business after winning a talent contest at a local theater at 13. It was the same contest, sponsored by The Baltimore Evening Sun, that Larry had won five years earlier, in 1927, and Jerry performed the same piece, Beethoven’s Minuet in G.“I was a very skinny, scrawny kid who couldn’t make it at all with the girls,” he told The Sarasota Herald-Tribune in 1997. “So I did this as a defense. And it worked.”

First prize was the chance to perform with the theater’s headliner, Red Skelton, for a week. A few years later, looking for work in Manhattan, Jerry talked his way into an audition with Paul Whiteman and soon began appearing with his orchestra at the Palace. Within two years, he was performing in front of King George V at London's Palladium Theatre. When introduced to the King, he reached out to shake hands instead of making the expected bow of deference, which got him blasted in the British tabloids. Jerry’s career paralleled his older brother, Larry’s, but Jerry’s forte was in popular music while Larry’s was classical.

He moved to Hollywood in the late 1930s and it became his base for the next forty years. His playing first appeared on screen in Frank Capra’s "You Can’t Take it With You" in 1938. During the Second World War Adler served in the US Army Air Corps as an entertainer. He toured the Pacific theatre and appeared on stage and on film in Moss Hart's patriotic revue, "Winged Victory." He also performed for troops in the Pacific as part of an entertainment unit called the Winged Pigeons.

Jerry with James Stewart

Film became the focus of his work for over twenty years. He taught James Stewart and other actors how to mime playing the harmonica and worked as a session musician in numerous films. Among most noteworthy soundtrack performances were on "Pot o'Gold" with Stewart (1941), "Shane", and "The Alamo" (1960). One of his rare on-screen appearances was with Kirk Douglas in "The Juggler" (1953). Other films of note were “High Noon”, and the 1964 films” My Fair Lady” and “Mary Poppins.” He played at the White House in 1954 including a duet with President Truman on the piano.

                 Here’s “Perfidia“ from A Handful Of Blues.

                     

               

Jerry worked on ships around the world of the Pacific Far East Line, Royal Viking, Holland America, Cunard, Crystal Harmony, Royal Caribbean, and others from 1972 until 1995. When the cruise ships became too onerous, he began performing on the Florida condo circuit. He also performed as soloist with orchestras in Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Abilene, usually performing the music of George Gershwin until his retirement in 2004 when he moved to the DeSoto Beach Club in Sarasota.

He married Sylvia Gandel in 1947; they soon were joined by son Michael, now of Germantown, MD, and daughter Susan (Lantis), now of Capitola CA. Sylvia later joined Jerry on many of his cruises, and died of cancer in 1990. In 1991, Jerry married Jean Ruppa of Milwaukee, who died in 2009. His autobiography, “Living from Hand to Mouth,” was published in 2005.

In his elder years, he told the Herald-Tribune he played once a week and scaled back his collection of 3,000 mouth organs to a dozen or so. At 90, he was still putting on small shows for friends and neighbours. He died of prostate cancer on14 March 2010 at Manatee County’s Tidewell Hospice, aged 91. 

Adler’s final music-making was singing along with his children from his hospice bed. He had been unable to communicate for days, but when his children sang a family favorite he joined in.

(Edited from The New York Times, Space Age Pop & Sarasota Herald Tribune)

Zoot Sims born 29 October 1925

 John Haley "Zoot" Sims (October 29, 1925 – March 23, 1985) was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor but also alto (and, later, soprano) saxophone. He first gained attention in the "Four Brothers" sax section of Woody Herman's big band, afterward enjoying a long solo career, often in partnership with fellow saxmen Gerry Mulligan and Al Cohn.

Throughout his career, Zoot Sims was famous for epitomizing the swinging musician, never playing an inappropriate phrase. He always sounded inspired, and although his style did not change much after the early 1950s, Zoot's enthusiasm and creativity never wavered.

Sims was born in 1925 in Inglewood, California, United States, to vaudeville performers Kate Haley and John Sims. His father was a vaudeville hoofer, and Sims prided himself on remembering many of the steps his father taught him. Growing up in a performing family, he learned to play drums and clarinet at an early age. His brother was the trombonist Ray Sims.

Sims began on tenor saxophone at age 13. He initially modelled his playing on the work of Lester Young, Ben Webster, and Don Byas. By his late teens, having dropped out of high school, he was a professional by the age of 15, playing in big bands, starting with those of Kenny Baker and Bobby Sherwood. He joined Benny Goodman's band for the first time in 1943 (he was to rejoin in 1946, and continued to perform with Goodman on occasion through the early 1970s). Sims replaced Ben Webster in Sid Catlett's Quartet of 1944. In May of 1944, Sims made his recording debut for Commodore Records in a sextet led by pianist Joe Bushkin, who two months earlier had recorded for the same label as part of Lester Young's Kansas City Six.

Sims served as a corporal in the United States Army Air Force from 1944 to 1946, then returned to music in the bands of Artie Shaw, Stan Kenton, and Buddy Rich. He was one of Woody Herman's "Four Brothers". 

On April 8, 1949, he recorded four sides with Stan Getz which were released on the New Jazz and Prestige labels in 1949 and 1950 The labels listed the artist as the Stan Getz Tenor Sax Stars and Stan Getz and his Four Brothers.

                              

From 1954-1956 he toured with his friend Gerry Mulligan's sextet, and in the early 1960s, with Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band.  Sims played on some of Jack Kerouac's recordings. From the late 1950s to the end of his life, Sims was primarily a freelancer, though he worked frequently in the 1960s and early 1970s with a group co-led with Al Cohn.  

In the 1970s and 1980s, he also played and recorded regularly with a handful of other musical partners including Bucky Pizzarelli, Joe Venuti, and Jimmy Rowles. In 1975, he began recording for Norman Granz's Pablo Records label. Sims appeared on more than 20 Pablo albums, mostly as a featured solo artist, but also as a backing musician for artists including Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, and Clark Terry. Between 1974 and 1983, Sims recorded six studio albums with pianist Jimmy Rowles in a quartet setting that critic Scott Yanow wrote feature Sims at his best.

Sims acquired the nickname "Zoot" early in his career while he was in the Kenny Baker band in California. "When he joined Kenny Baker's band as a fifteen-year-old tenor saxophonist, each of the music stands was embellished with a nonsense word. The one he sat behind said "Zoot." That became his name."

Sims married journalist Louise Ault in 1970; the match was evidently a happy one: "His playing took on a new fullness and warmth," wrote Balliett. "By the mid-seventies he had become a saxophonist of the first rank." Although the couple lived in New York, Sims continued his itinerant ways during the decade, traveling to Australia with Goodman, and to Scandinavia with Cohn; he was honoured at the "Salute to Zoot" show at New York University in 1975. A few years later Sims' liver became infected from chronic alcohol abuse and he was faced with a choice: "Give up drinking," according to the Los Angeles Times,, "or give up living." "He opted for the former," Folkart wrote, "and went back out on the road as a sober saxophonist."

In 1982 Sims curtailed his performing schedule when doctors found a growth behind his right kidney. He recorded several memorable sessions on the Pablo label in the early 1980s, including Blues for Twowith guitarist Joe Pass, and On the Corner, a live set from the Keystone Korner in San Francisco. He played selective dates in the mid-1980s, and performed at an all-star event with Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Carter a few months before his death.

Through the years, he appeared in countless situations, and always seemed to come out ahead. Fortunately, Zoot Sims recorded over 50 albums during his four-decade career, leading sessions for Prestige, Metronome, Vogue, Dawn, Storyville, Argo, ABC-Paramount, Riverside, United Artists, Pacific Jazz, Bethlehem, Colpix, Impulse, Groove Merchant, Famous Door, Choice, Sonet, and a wonderful series for Pablo.

Sims' last studio recording was a November, 1984 trio session featuring bassist Red Mitchell, recorded in Sweden and released in 1985 by Sonet records. Zoot Sims died of lung cancer on March 23, 1985 in New York City, and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, in Nyack, New York. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, AllMusic & Musician Guide)

Here’s a clip featuring Zoot Sims, tenor saxophone, Oscar Peterson, piano, Ray Brown, bass and Bobby Durham, drums. 

Mitchell Torok born 28 October 1929

Mitchell Torok (born October 28, 1929) was an American country music singer-songwriter, guitarist, artist and author, best known for his 1953 hit record "Caribbean". He also wrote "Mexican Joe", which catapulted Jim Reeves to stardom. They began to write together and charted with many top 20 hits.

Mitchell Torok was born in Houston, Texas. His parents were immigrants from Hungary. Torok learned the guitar at the end of elementary school. A natural athlete, Mitch went to university in Nacogdoches, Texas, on a football and baseball scholarship. While at university he was hired to write a song to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Cononco Oil Company. He also cut his first record in the late 40s while hosting a radio show in Lufkin, two hours northeast of Houston, and another radio show in the Houston suburb of Rosenberg.

When Hank Williams died on New Years’ Day in 1953, Torok was one of many in the country music who put pen to paper. But instead of writing sad country songs, Mitch wrote a carefree tune called “Mexican Joe.” He intended the song for Hank Snow. However, Torok met up with a   record producer with Abbott Records who wanted to record the song with a novice musician called Jim Reeves. As a radio announcer on the Hayride Show in Shreveport, Louisiana, Reeves was not in the line-up to sing. However, radio KWKH  gave Reeves a chance to perform a song and he chose “Mexican Joe”. The song went to #1 on the Billboard Country Music Charts for seven weeks in the spring of ’53. Abbott Records promptly gave Mitchell Torok a contract. Soon after Mitchell Torok wrote and sang a song that climbed to #1 on the Billboard country and jukebox charts called “Caribbean”.

In 1954 the Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport added Torok to it’s roster. That same year he had another Top Ten country hit in the USA called “Hootchy Kootchy Henry (From Hawaii).” In 1956 Torok got a record deal with Decca Records. He and his co-writer and spouse, Gail Redd, wrote numbers of songs. But that year it was a song she wrote called “When Mexico Gave Up The Rhumba” that peaked at #6 in the United Kingdom. With this fame Mitchell Torok went on a four-month tour of the UK with Johnnie Ray. In the April of ’57 Torok had his first Top Ten hit in Vancouver called “Pledge of Love”.

                              

“Pledge Of Love” was written by Ramona Redd. This is an alias of Gail Ramona Redd, born in near Lufkin, in Angelina County, Texas, in 1932. She became a beauty queen and married Mitchell Torok in 1951, becoming Gail Ramona Redd Torok. She also penned other songs under the names Gale Jones and Gayle Jones.

“Pledge Of Love” is about someone who is so in love that they love the object of their desire more than each beat of their heart. They are afraid that the person they love won’t care for them as well. The song was one of many where the singer professed they couldn’t live without the love of their sweetheart.

Then in 1959 Mitchell Torok’s first #1 country hit in the USA, “Caribbean,” went to #1 in Vancouver and #27 in on the Billboard Hot 100. To support his single, Torok appeared on Dick Clark Saturday Night Beechnut Show on August 22, 1959. His followup single, “Mexican Joe” barely made the CKWX Sensational Sixty. He also released a single in April 1959 titled “Teenie Weenie Bikini”. In March 1960 Torok reappeared on the CFUN pop chart in Vancouver with “Guardian Angel”. The tune managed to climb to #41, though it didn’t crack the Billboard Hot 100 in Mitchell Torok’s home country. In 1960 Mitchell Torok had his last hit on the pop charts with “Pink Chiffon”, climbing to #9 in Vancouver (BC).

Torok made a few more pop-oriented singles through to 1963 with no commercial impact. In 1966 he switched to the Reprise label and released “Instant Love”. The Country & Western tune related how a guy has a “baby” in his life who gives him instant love, while other folks get Instant Coffee and Instant Tea in their lives. In 1971 Mitchell Torok and Ramona Redd recorded a duet that was a minor hit on the country charts titled “California Morning”.

Mitchell Torok continued writing songs including “The Redneck National Anthem” for Vernon Oxford who had a Top 20 hit with the song on the Billboard Country chart in 1976. In 1977 Mitchell was commissioned to paint a 110-foot, five-panel mural titled The History of the Grand Ol’ Opry. The mural was a fund raiser for the adjacent Hank Snow Abused Children’s Foundation. After the death of Elvis Presley, Torok notably created the ELVIS-A-RAMA. This was a mural 12 feet high and 125 feet long. It was featured with a 22 minute light and music show of Elvis’ life.

In April 2014, it was reported that Torok had moved to Alvin, Texas at the age of 84, to live with his daughter and was still living there in 2017, but according to the obituary of his brother, William, from November 2020, notes that Mitchell Torok predeceased him. (So he may have passed away between 2017 and 2020).

(Edited mainly from Vancouver Signature Sounds & Wikipedia)

Dallas Frazier born 27 October 1939

Dallas Frazier (born October 27, 1939) is an American country musician and songwriter who had success in the 1950s and 1960s.

Frazier was born in Spiro, Oklahoma, United States, but was raised in Bakersfield, California. As a teenager, he played with Ferlin Husky and on the program Hometown Jamboree; and released his first single, "Space Command", at age 14 in 1954. As he told writer Edd Hurt in a 2008 profile for the music website Perfect Sound Forever, "We were part of The Grapes of Wrath. We were the Okies who went out to California with mattresses tied on the tops of their Model A Fords. My folks were poor. At twelve I moved away from home, with my folks' permission. Ferlin Husky offered me a job, and I started working with him when I was twelve. Then I recorded a side for Capitol Records when I was fourteen, and I did some country. I cut in the big circular building that's still out there on Hollywood and Vine."

Frazier, T.E.Ford, Jean Shepard, Tommy Collins

Frazier's 1957 song "Alley Oop", later taken to No. 1 in the US by The Hollywood Argyles, was his first hit. After Hometown Jamboree went off the air, Frazier moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and found work as a songwriter. Among his early successes was "Timber I'm Falling", a hit for Husky in 1964, and "There Goes My Everything", a big hit for Jack Greene in 1966, that earned him a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Country Song. In 1966, he released his solo debut album Elvira, containing his song "Elvira". His follow-up, Tell It Like It Is (1967), was also a success.

                              

While his singing success was limited, Frazier became an oft-covered songwriter. His tunes were recorded by O.C. Smith, George Jones (who recorded an entire album of Frazier's songs in 1968), Diana Ross, Engelbert Humperdinck, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jack Greene, Connie Smith (who also recorded an entire album of Frazier's songs in 1972), Willie Nelson, Brenda Lee, Carola, Charley Pride, Merle Haggard, Gene Watson, Elvis Presley, Moe Bandy, Roy Head, Charlie Louvin, Rodney Crowell, Dan McCafferty, Poco, and Ronnie Hawkins.

In 1970, Frazier earned his second Grammy nomination for Best Country Song, which is awarded to the songwriter rather than the performer, for "All I Have to Offer You (Is Me), which became a No. 1 hit for Charley Pride. Frazier was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1976.

Many of the songs became hits into the 1980s; examples include the Oak Ridge Boys cover of "Elvira" and Emmylou Harris's version of "Beneath Still Waters". The cover of "Elvira" by the Oak Ridge Boys was a crossover hit, peaking at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Country Singles and Tracks chart and No. 5 on the all genre Billboard Hot 100; and earned Frazier his third Grammy nomination for Best Country song. Anne Murray with Glen Campbell, George Strait, Randy Travis, and Patty Loveless have all also recorded Frazier tunes. Frazier himself charted eight times on the U.S. country chart.

In 1988, however, Frazier retired from songwriting, leaving Nashville to pursue a career in the ministry. From 1999 to 2006, he was Pastor at Grace Community Fellowship in White House, Tennessee. After retiring as pastor in 2006, Frazier returned to his recording career. In 2011, he released the album Writing & Singing Again. He and his wife Sharon live on a farm near Nashville, Tennessee. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & AllMusic)

Maggie Roche born 26 October 1951

Maggie Roche (October 26, 1951 – January 21, 2017) was the eldest of the trio of singing sisters the Roches, whose songs bridged the gap between American folk and pop styles. Maggie brought her low alto voice to the harmonies she wove with her sisters, Terre and Suzzy, in her quirky, often funny but always heartfelt songs. 

Maggie grew up in Park Ridge, New Jersey, in an Irish Catholic family, the daughter of John Roche, an actor, and his wife, Jude (nee Jewell). Her father wrote songs for local political candidates, which were sung by the teenage Maggie and Terre. The sisters caught the songwriting bug, performing at school and church functions. Maggie briefly studied at Bard College, New York state. In addition to singing, Maggie played guitar and keyboards, but she often stayed in the shadows. Suzzy described her as a private person, sensitive and shy, but “smart, wickedly funny and authentic”. 

Suzzy, Maggie and Terre

Maggie received her first big break when she and Terre attended a songwriting course led by Paul Simon at New York University in 1970. The experience gave the two sisters added confidence to write and perform, and when looking for a record company they contacted Simon, who used them as backing singers on his 1973 album There Goes Rhymin’ Simon, paid for their music lessons and then helped produce their duo album, Seductive Reasoning (1975). Though Simon recognised their talent, the experience overwhelmed the two sisters, who disappeared for six months to study martial arts. Upon their return, they were joined by Suzzy, performing as a trio at Gerde’s Folk City and elsewhere in Greenwich Village, New York. 

Maggie Roche had an "unusual" contralto voice – "almost a baritone." Terre provided a soprano that brackets the upper range of the sisters, while Suzzy filled in the middle range. While touring, the sisters accompanied themselves with guitars and keyboards, occasionally with additional musicians. The Roches’ reputation spread: the New York Times identified them as leaders of a new folk revival, and they played support to visiting headline acts. 

                     

Robert Fripp of King Crimson admired the women’s unusual songs and style, and when both he and they signed for Warner he was ideally placed to produce the trio’s eponymous first album in 1979. The record, which included Maggie’s songs The Married Men and Hammond Song, established their reputation. The follow-up, Nurds (1980), was surpassed by the more acoustic sound on Keep on Doing (1982), which included their unlikely but often requested arrangement of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus. 

Although the Roches never broke through to achieve chart success, they took it in their stride, together writing Big Nuthin’ about a television show that was going to change their careers but which turned out to be a “big nuthin’”. When they played it on Johnny Carson’s TV show, he failed to see the joke. Nevertheless, they paved the way for female singer-songwriters in the 1980s and 90s, with Indigo Girls citing them as an early influence; the Roches guested on a couple of Indigo Girls albums. 

Further albums included Another World (1985) and a Christmas record, We Three Kings (1990). Their songs featured on the soundtrack of the film Crossing Delancey (1988), and they provided voiceovers for animated cockroaches in Steven Spielberg’s television cartoon series Tiny Toon Adventures. They toured the UK, appearing at the Cambridge folk festival (1981, 1993) and on BBC’s The Old Grey Whistle Test. They sang on several Loudon Wainwright III albums: he was Suzzy’s partner for a while, and their daughter, Lucy, sang occasionally with the Roches. After a tour interrupted by the death of their father, the Roches released Can We Go Home Now (1995), the last original recording they released as a trio until 2007. 

In 1997, the sisters formally put their group on long-term hold. They continued to work on solo projects and often collaborated on albums and performances. Terre teaches guitar workshops and has released a solo album. Suzzy, who has acted on the stage and in several movies, released two of her own albums and two with Maggie, with whom she toured. All three sisters periodically participated in New York-area events. At the end of 2005, the three Roches (with brother Dave) reunited for a short but successful holiday tour. 

Several more appearances in the U.S. and Canada took place in 2006–07, and in March 2007, after a 12-year hiatus, the Roches released a new studio album, Moonswept. Following the tour for Moonswept, the Roches announced that they would no longer be touring, although they continued to make isolated appearances individually and as a group, mostly in and around New York City. 

On January 21, 2017, Maggie Roche died from breast cancer at the age of 65. 

(Edited from Guardian article by Derek Schofield & Wikipedia)

Helen Reddy born 25 October 1942

Helen Reddy (25 October 1941 – 29 September 2020) was an Australian-American singer, songwriter, author, actress, and activist. The Chicago Tribune declared her the “queen of ‘70s pop”. 

Helen Maxine Lamond Reddy was born on October 25th, 1941, in Melbourne, Australia, the only child of Max Reddy, a writer, producer and actor; and Stella (Lamond) Reddy, an actor whose stage name was Stella Campbell. Her father was in New Guinea, serving in the Australian army, when she was born. The Reddy’s performed on the Australian vaudeville circuit, and Helen began joining them onstage when she was 4. 

At 12, she rebelled by quitting showbusiness and going to live with an aunt while her parents toured. But her financial situation – after an early marriage, parenthood and divorce – persuaded her to return. Reddy had a solid reputation in Australian television and radio when she won a 1966 talent contest sponsored by Bandstand, a Sydney pop-music television show. The prize was a trip to New York City and a record-company audition there. The audition did not pan out, and her career got off to a slow, discouraging start. 

Before Capitol Records signed her in 1970, at least 27 record labels rejected her, and she and her new husband, Jeff Wald, who was now her manager, moved – first to Chicago, then to Los Angeles. 

Reddy’s first hit was a 1971 cover of I Don’t Know How to Love Him, a hit from the award-winning stage show Jesus Christ Superstar.  During the 1970s, three of Reddy’s songs – including Delta Dawn and Angie Baby – went to No 1 on the Billboard chart. Three others – Ain’t No Way to Treat a Lady, You and Me Against the World and Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress) – made the Top 10. 

                 

                     

I Am Woman, which sold more than 25 million copies in the US alone, reached No 1 on the Billboard charts at the end of 1972 (a good six months after it was released and earned her the Grammy Award for best female pop vocal performance. She was the first Australian-born artist to win a Grammy and the first to make the Billboard 100 record charts. She was a frequent guest in the early 1970s on variety, music and talk shows . The Helen Reddy Show (1973) was an eight-episode summer replacement series on NBC.

She made her big-screen debut in the disaster movie Airport 1975 (released in 1974) as a guitar-playing nun who comforts a sick little girl (Linda Blair) on an almost certainly doomed 747. Reddy always liked to point out that Gloria Swanson and Myrna Loy were also in the cast. That was followed by a starring role in the Disney movie Pete’s Dragon (1977), as a sceptical New England lighthouse keeper who doubts an orphaned boy’s stories about his animated fire-breathing pet. 

Helen with Jeff Wald

By the 1980s, her glory days were largely in the past, and she was bored. “I remember the Vegas days when it was two shows a night, seven nights a week,” she told The Chicago Tribune in 2013, “and it became so rote that I’d be thinking about wallpaper while I was singing.”  She had a busy stage career, starring in productions of Anything Goes, Call Me Madam and Shirley Valentine in England and the US. The last Helen Reddy song to make the American charts was I Can’t Say Goodbye to You (1981), and Imagination (1983) was her last album. Her final screen appearance was in The Perfect Host (2010), a crime comedy with David Hyde Pierce. 

When Reddy retired in 2002, she meant business, going back to school, getting a degree in clinical hypnotherapy and practising as a therapist and motivational speaker. In 2006, Reddy was inducted in to the Australian Recording Industry Association Hall of Fame. In 2012, she announced a comeback and made several concert appearances in the United States before retiring again. In a 2013 interview, Reddy seemed philosophical. “I am at the age where I can just kick back and say what a wonderful life I’ve had,” she told The Sydney Morning Herald. And she laughed when one very familiar question came up: whether she was nervous the first time she went onstage. “I don’t remember the first time I went onstage,” she said. 

Reddy married and divorced three times. In 1961, she married Kenneth Claude Weate, an older musician who was a family friend. They had a daughter and divorced in 1966. In 1968, she married Wald, and they had a son. They separated in 1981, when he checked into a treatment facility for cocaine addiction, and divorced two years later. That same year, she married Milton Ruth, a drummer in her band. They divorced in 1995. 

It was reported in 2015 that Reddy was suffering from Addison’s disease and dementia and was being cared for at the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s Samuel Goldwyn Center for Behavioral Health in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, where she died on 29 September 2020. 

(Edited from The Irish Times & Variety)