Sumter Bruton born 31 October 1944

Sumter Bruton (Oct. 31, 1944 – Sept. 30, 2022) was considered by many to be one of the top interpreters of the T-Bone Walker guitar style as well as an authority on blues and rhythm and blues, he was also best known as co founder of the Juke Jumpers, a legendary Texas R&B, rockabilly, jazz and swing band. 

Thomas Sumter Bruton III was born in Fort Worth, Texas, to a musical family. His parents owned Record Town, a store that opened in 1957 on University Drive across from TCU, where he played baseball and earned a degree. Sumter’s father, Sumter Bruton Jr., was a jazz drummer, musicologist and raconteur of the highest order, the latter two traits he passed to his oldest son. 

5 Careless Lovers

Sumter’s career began when he started playing guitar in 1962. The first bands he played in were college blues and rock & roll combos. In 1968 Sumter joined the Robert Ealey Blues Band. He was the only white musician in the group that became Robert Ealey and the 5 Careless Lovers in 1972. They played often at the New Bluebird Nightclub on Horne Street, where Sumter honed his guitar skills and word of his prowess spread. In 1974 Sumter formed his own band called Boogie Uproar, a blues and R&B band that featured a horn section. A year later he formed a similar band called Rhumboogie. 

In 1977 Sumter, along with singer/songwriter/guitarist Jim Colegrove, started the Juke Jumpers, a legendary Texas R&B, rockabilly, jazz and swing band. The band recorded five albums and toured the country and Europe, earning rave reviews. Whether it was Colegrove’s swampy grooves, Johnny Reno’s blistering sax solos (often taken while “walking the bar” at whatever venue they were playing), or Sumter taking his tasty guitar solos onto the dancefloor like his Texas guitar idol, T-Bone Walker, the band had star power, charisma and chops to spare. 

                      Here’s “T-Bone Shuffle” from above LP.

                             

When Stevie Ray Vaughn  – who Sumter knew – made Texas blues hot and hip in the ’80s, the Juke Jumpers rode the wave and kept the boogie going for several years doing over 200 gigs a year for a time.  The band broke up a few times, but came back together several times over the years with the core nucleus of Sumter and Colegrove.  

Among the various artists with whom Suimter performed was singer, writer, and piano player, Mike Price. Together they formed The Swingmasters in 1993. Sumter played on many other albums, including Slim Richey’s Jazz Grass, a seminal album from 1977 that is considered one of the first – and most successful – records to mix jazz with bluegrass. 

When Sumter’s father died in 1988, he helped manage Record Town, along with his mother Kathleen. Sometimes, Sumter’s brother, the equally musical Stephen, would be in the store and the two would trade stories and sometimes guitar licks with each other. You never knew what you’d find when you stopped in on Sumter and Record Town. You’d likely walk out with a record or two. Stephen Bruton, who died in 2009, was a singer and guitar player who played with Kris Kristofferson and Bob Dylan, among many others. He also wrote “Trip Around the Sun.”  

During the spring of 2013 Bruton entered hospital with a staph infection after which his health deteriorated significantly.. Eventually he had to sell Record Town and its iconic neon sign several years ago to fans and friends of the store. He died on Sept. 30, 2022 at the age of 77, and on Oct. 8, a memorial celebration was held at Ridglea Theater Lounge by musicians who had crossed paths and learned from their generous friend. 

(Edited from Fort Worth Report & The Cool Groove)

Tommy Ridgley born 30 October 1925

Thomas Herman Ridgley (October 30, 1925 – August 11, 1999) was an American R&B singer, pianist, songwriter and bandleader.

Tommy Ridgley was born in the Shrewsbury district of New Orleans , the eldest of seventeen brothers and sisters, of which eight survived He had an impoverished upbringing and was a breadwinner for his family before his teens. His social life and that of his family centred on the local church where Ridgley began singing in harmony groups He served with the United States Navy during the Second World War and during his rest-time learnt to play the piano. At demobilization under the terms of the G.I. Bill, that provided World War II veterans with funds for college education Ridgley studied at the Grunewald School of Music. In 1946 he entered a talent contest at the Dew Drop Inn , one of New Orleans premier nightclubs which he won and more significantly gained a profile as an up-coming performer. 

Ridgley started his professional career in the late 40's as a band singer with a New Orleans Dixieland group and after a brief stint with Earl Anderson's band playing at The Starlight Hotel in Gert Town, he was recruited by trumpeter and band leader Dave Bartholomew. Ridgley, released his debut single, Shrewsbury Blues c/w Early Dawn Boogie in New Orleans in 1949. Produced by Bartholomew and released on the new imprint Imperial Records the record established Ridgley within New Orleans as a progenitor of jump blues and blues ballads. In 1952 Lew Chudd, owner of Imperial records selected Ridgley and Bartholomew to cover a song called Looped. It was another New Orleans hit and thereafter a staple of Tommy Ridgley's repertoire. Ridgley's singing style in his early career has been compared to that of Roy Brown whilst his reputation as a major New Orleans artist was enhanced by Dave Bartholomew's band that featured outstanding musicians: drummer Earl Palmer and saxophonists Lee Allen, Herb Hardesty, Red Tyler and Ernest Allen. 

In 1953 Ridgley left Bartholomew's band and signed a contract with Atlantic records. He cut I'm Gonna Cross That River c/w Ooh Lawdy My Baby, a record that featured Ray Charles on piano as a member of Edgar Blanchard's Gondoliers  and Jam Up, a sax-led instrumental dance record that narrowly missed the national charts when re-cut in 1961. A regular presence by 1957 on the thriving R&B scene in New Orleans, he was offered a recording contract with Herald Records, by which time Ridgley had formed his own band The Untouchables. Herald released six singles by The Untouchables of which the first release When I Meet My Girl was the most successful. 

By the end of 1950's Tommy Ridgley and The Untouchables were the resident band at the iconic Dew Drop Inn where they opened for and sometimes backed visiting acts. These included a number of major R&B artists of the late 50's and early 60's: James Brown, Clyde McPhatter, Sam Cooke, Little Willie John and Ivory Joe Hunter . Ridgley also employed a young Irma Thomas as one of his girl singers, later recommending her to Ric Records where she recorded for the subsidiary Ron label. 

                              

In 1960, Ridgley also signed with Joe Ruffino's New Orleans Ric Records, and released seven singles, at six monthly intervals. His third release, a recording of Wynona Carr's Should I Ever Love Again c/w Double-Eyed Whammy was a strong seller in spring 1961. His fifth release on Ric In The Same Old Way proved one of the most successful records of his career and he later cut it again on the Shreveport based label Ronn label. 

Joe Ruffino's death in 1962 left the label in limbo and Ridgley's final two Ric 45s were released with little in the way of promotion and although they had Dr John on production duties they were not successful. However, Heavenly c/w Honest I Do and I’ve Heard That Story Before, the later covered by his brother Sammy Ridgley demonstrated that Ridgley could adapt his voice to the new soul music style that was evolving. 

A one-record deal with the tiny Cinderella label saw No One But You released in the winter of 1963. In February 1964 Cash Box reviewed favourably All My Love Belongs To You c/w I Want Some Money, on the Johen label, a R&B dance record from the pen of Eddie Bo. As the decade progressed Tommy Ridgley continued to gig regularly in New Orleans and Louisiana releasing further one-off soul 45s on small labels: Blue Jay, White Cliffs and Ronn. Ridgley also cut a number of tracks at a studio in Clinton, Mississippi for Bob Robin's International City imprint including My Love is Getting Stronger, a song that became highly popular on the UK Northern Soul scene in the 1970s and 80s. 

Ridgley always remained a hometown favourite even when recording opportunities proved scarce. Happily, Since the Blues Began ranked with 1995's best albums, Ridgley sounding entirely contemporary but retaining his defining Crescent City R&B edge.In January 1999 Ridgley received OffBeat magazine's annual Lifetime Achievement Award Ridgley who suffered from kidney failure in his last few years, died from lung cancer, caused by asbestos inhalation whilst working as a construction worker, in August 1999. 

(Edited from Wikipedia)

Chas Burchell born 29 October 1925

Chas Burchell (30 October 1925 - 3 June 1986) was a British saxophonist and composer. 

Charles Burchell was born in in London, England. Originally a George Formby fan, Burchell began to learn the ukelele, then guitar, before hearing an Artie Shaw record that inspired him to take up the clarinet and play jazz. Switching to alto saxophone, he started his own quintet in 1943, then tried tenor saxophone before he was drafted into the Royal Air Force. Transferred to the army in 1944, he played in Greece with the British Divisional Band and, following his discharge in 1947, worked in London with the Toni Antone big band. 

In 1949 he gave up full-time musicianship and worked in a factory so that he would not have to perform music he did not like in order to make a living: ‘All my playing is playing for love, ’ he told writer Victor Schonfield in 1978. A disciple of Lennie Tristano and a devoted admirer of Warne Marsh, Burchell continued to play part-time, leading his own quintet for more than 20 years, guesting with distinguished visitors such as Clark Terry, Emily Remler and Nathan Davis, and recording for Peter Ind’s Wave label, as well as playing with Ind in the group that supported Tristano on his only UK concert, at Harrogate in 1968. 

A wonderfully supple, lyrical tenor saxophonist whose unpredictable twists and turns of phrase recall the style of his idol Marsh, Burchell died of a heart attack in 1986. He remains, in the words of his friend and musical associate, journalist Mike Hennessey, ‘one of the great unsung heroes of British jazz’. 

(AllMusic biography)

Charlie Daniels born 28 October 1936

Charles Edward Daniels (October 28, 1936 – July 6, 2020) was an American singer, musician, and songwriter. His music encompassed multiple genres in a career spanning five decades, including southern rock, country rock, country, bluegrass, blues and gospel. 

Daniels was born and raised in North Carolina, playing fiddle and guitar in several bands during his teenage years. At the age of 21, he decided to become a professional musician, assembling an instrumental rock & roll combo called the Jaguars. The group landed a recording session for Epic Records in 1959 with Bob Johnson, who would later become Columbia Records' leading folk and country producer. The record didn't receive much attention, but the band continued to play, and Daniels continued to write songs. One of his originals, "It Hurts Me," was recorded by Elvis Presley in 1963. 

By the late '60s, it had become clear that the Jaguars weren't going to hit the big time, so Johnson recommended to Daniels that he move to Nashville to become a session musician. Daniels followed the advice and became one of the most popular fiddlers in Nashville. He played on several Bob Dylan albums -- Nashville Skyline, Self Portrait, New Morning, and Dylan -- as well as Ringo Starr's 1970 record Beaucoups of Blues. He also became part of Leonard Cohen's touring band in the late '60s and produced the Youngbloods' Elephant Mountain album around the same time. 

Daniels cut an album for Capitol Records in the early '70s that was ignored. In 1972, he formed the Charlie Daniels Band, using the Southern rock of the Allman Brothers as a blueprint. The band comprised Daniels (lead guitar, vocals, fiddle), lead guitarist Don Murray, bassist Charlie Hayward, drummer James W. Marshall, and keyboardist Joe DiGregorio. The formula worked, and in 1973 they had a minor hit with "Uneasy Rider," which was released on Kama Sutra Records. In 1974, they released Fire on the Mountain, which became a gold record within months of its release; the album would eventually go platinum. Its successor, 1975's Nightrider, did even better, thanks to the Top 40 country hit "Texas." Saddle Tramp, released in 1976, became his first country Top Ten album, going gold. 

Throughout the mid-'70s, the Charlie Daniels Band pursued a Southern rock direction. They were moderately successful, but they never had a breakthrough hit either on the pop or the country charts. By the late '70s, Daniels sensed that the audience for Southern rock was evaporating, so he refashioned his group as a more straightforward country band. The change paid off in 1979 when the single "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" became a number one hit, crossing over into the pop charts, where it hit number three. The song was named the Country Music Association's Single of the Year and helped its accompanying album, Million Mile Reflections, become a multi-platinum success. 

                             

Daniels wasn't able to follow "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" with another blockbuster single on the country charts but, ironically, he had several rock crossover successes in the years following the success of Million Mile Reflections: Full Moon (1980) went platinum and Windows (1982) went gold. Although he continued to sell respectably throughout the '80s, he didn't have a big hit until 1989's Simple Man, which went gold. In the '90s, his records failed to chart well, although he remained a popular concert draw, a trend that continued into the 21st century. 

During the first decade of the new millennium, Daniels quietly transitioned from major labels to independents, releasing records on Blue Hat and Audium, garnering some headlines in 2003 with his pro-Iraq War anthem "This Ain't No Rag, It's a Flag," a song popular enough to launch a spin-off book, Ain't No Rag. Two years later, Daniels established a long-running relationship with Koch in 2005 with Songs from the Longleaf Pines. Daniels' albums for Koch ran the gamut from bluegrass to bluesy country-rock, punctuated with holiday collections and live records, or thematic compilations like 2010's patriotic The Land That I Love. Daniels was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 2007. 

Over the next decade, he played regular concerts and delivered new albums every few years, including 2013's Hits of the South and 2014's Off the Grid: Doin' It Dylan. In 2016, Daniels released Night Hawk -- a loose concept album celebrating cowboys -- and was also inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. The next year, he published his memoir, Never Look at the Cheap Seats. In 2018, Daniels debuted Beau Weevils -- a band he formed with James Stroud -- through the release of their debut album, Songs in the Key of E. 

Daniels stayed on the road -- and stayed online -- through 2018 and 2019, playing the 20th edition of his Volunteer Jam in March 2018. He planned to do another Volunteer Jam in 2020, but it was pushed back to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A few weeks after the announcement of the rescheduling, Charlie Daniels died of a massive hemorrhagic stroke on July 6, 2020. He was 83 years old. 

(Edited from AllMusic bio by Stephen Thomas Erlewine) 

Babs Gonzales born 27 October 1919

Babs Gonzales (October 27, 1919 – January 23, 1980), born Lee Brown, was an American bebop vocalist, poet, and self-published author. His high-speed jazz, heartbreaking ballads, and honest, humorous street poetry was expounded through an inventive vocabulary which saw him dubbed “inventor of the bebop language". 

Gonzales was born Lee Brown in Newark, New Jersey, United States. He was raised solely by his mother Lottie Brown alongside two brothers. Of his nickname, Gonzales explained, "my brothers are basketball players... there was a basketball star in America named Big Babbiad, and so they were called Big Babs, Middle Babs, and I'm Little Babs." As a young man, Gonzales worked as band boy for swing bandleader Jimmie Lunceford, after which he relocated to Los Angeles. 

To circumvent racial segregation, Gonzales wore a turban and used the pseudonym Ram Singh, passing as an Indian national. Using this identity, Gonzales worked at the Los Angeles Country Club until becoming a private chauffeur to movie star Errol Flynn. Whilst hospitalized for appendicitis in 1944, he assumed the Spanish surname Gonzales so as to get a room in a good hotel. After the outbreak of World War II, Gonzales was forced to return home to Newark to report for military duty, but was declared unfit for service after arriving to his inspection dressed as a woman. 

After working with Charlie Barnet and Lionel Hampton's big bands, Gonzales moved to New York and became involved with the burgeoning sound of bebop, a style which initially confused him. "I didn't understand what Charlie Parker was playing," said Gonzales, "I did not understand anything about bebop until Dizzy,  who - showing me chords, explaining to me what the melodic lines were that he was playing - opened up the music to me." Despite being a trained pianist and drummer, Gonzales preferred to sing rather than play an instrument, stating that "it's easier to sing and, above all, it's less tiring. We don't sweat while playing and we always look handsome. Plus, a singer usually earns more money than an instrumentalist." 

Gonzales formed his own group, Babs' Three Bips and A Bop, releasing a number of 78rpm singles for Blue Note, Capitol, and Apollo labels in the late 1940s. Tadd Dameron, Sonny Rollins, Roy Haynes, Wynton Kelly, and Bennie Green were among the musicians who performed at these recording sessions. "I formed the Bips because I felt bebop needed a bridge to the people," said Gonzales, "The fire was there... but it wasn't reaching the people." 

                              

The most notable of Babs' Three Bips and A Bop singles was "Oop-Pop-A-Da". Its prominent scat singing was credited with originating "an easy route to vocal improvisation which is still employed by jazz aspirants the world over." A cover version of "Oop-Pop-A-Da" later became a one of Dizzy Gillespie's first commercial successes. Gonzales himself rejected being labelled a "scat" singer, stating "I am a jazz singer. Scat is a technical way of interpreting a melody by paraphrasing it by means of onomatopoeia. The scat singers do not improvise. I do not stop improvising, like an instrumentalist; I improvise on the harmonic frame and use chords of passage." 

Saxophonist Sonny Rollins' debut recordings were made with Gonzales at a session for the Capitol label in 1949. From 1951, Gonzales began to travel regularly to Europe, and remained there for months at a time. Babs performed at Ronnie Scott's club in London as early as 1962, one of the first Americans to play the venue.Hes released a string of albums and singles throughout the 1950s and 1960s, but became only a cult figure, ultimately self-publishing his own recordings. As composer and arranger, Gonzales provided music for Bennie Green,  Johnny Griffin, James Clay and David "Fathead" Newman,  Paul Gonsalves and others. As a guest vocalist he appeared on releases by James Moody, Eddie Jefferson, Jimmy Smith, Bennie Green, Johnny Griffin, and Savoy Records supergroup The Bebop Boys, where he appeared alongside musicians such as Fats Navarro and Bud Powell. 

Babs in Paris 1957

Throughout this time Gonzales remained a behind-the-scenes influence in the jazz world, linking musicians to one other and introducing them recording to companies. From 1958, Gonzales operated a nightclub called Babs' Insane Asylum, located in Sugar Hill, New York at 155th Street and St. Nicholas Place. Gonzales attempted to open a similar club in Paris, named Le Maison Du Idiots, but lost access to his $10,000 investment after a general strike. 

Gonzales wrote and self-published two books, I Paid My Dues: Good Times... No Bread (1967) and Movin' on Down de Line (1975). The books were largely autobiographical but also featured short stories about the exploits of "shyster" agents, hustlers, pimps and prostitutes who were known to Gonzales Gonzales also printed a small "bebop dictionary". He personally sold these books at jazz concerts. 

Gonzales died of cancer at Newark's College Hospital, New Jersey, in January 1980. 

(Edited from Wikipedia)

Here’s a clip of Babs Gonzales on vocals, Rein de Graaff on piano, Luigi Trussardi on bass, Charles “LoLo” Belonzi on drums. Recorded in Paris during 1979. Songs include: Oop-pop-a-da, Round Midnight, La La in Paris and Cool Whalin’.

Beto Villa born 26 October 1915

Beto Villa ( 26 October, 1915 – 1 November, 1986) was a saxophonist and "father" of the Orquesta Tejana. 

Beto was born in Falfurrias, Texas. His father Alberto, Sr., was both a tailor and a musician and strongly encouraged his son to learn to read music. In 1932, while in high school, Beto formed a band called The Sonny Boys, which performed at local festivals and school dances. Four years later, he got his first full-time gig in Freer, Texas, at a dance hall known as the Barn. 

For the next several years he played in primarily Anglo dance halls, where he learned to imitate popular American swing bands. Although Villa appeared to be well on his way to establishing a musical career, in 1940 he opened a meat market with his father-in-law. After serving in the United States Navy during World War II (he played in a band for enlisted personnel), he returned to Falfurrias and opened up the Pan American and La Plaza dance halls. While still working in his meat shop, Villa occasionally performed music on the weekends. He soon realized that he could earn more money performing in one weekend than he could working all week as a butcher. So he turned his attention increasingly toward becoming a full-time musician. 

By 1946 Villa had developed the idea of merging Mexican-American music and more mainstream popular music by combining the urbanized orquesta with a ranchero style, thereby giving it an arrancherado orquesta sound. In that same year, he approached his friend, Armando Marroquín, founder of the new record company Discos Ideal (Ideal Records), to ask Marroquín to help make a record that would capture the sound of this new musical style Villa had created. The partnership led to Villa's recording of his first singles on a 78 rpm acetate disc, which included a polka entitled "Las Delicias" and a waltz called "¿Porqué te Ríes?" 

                             

With broader exposure through these new recordings, Beto Villa y su Orquesta quickly became popular in dance halls throughout South Texas. In 1948 the band scored its first hit, "Rosita." Other hits soon followed, such as "Las Gaviotas," "La Picona," "Tamaulipas," and "Monterrey." "Monterrey," a polka in which Villa teamed up with conjunto accordionist Narciso Martínez, demonstrated Villa's musical versatility and determination to blend together a variety of musical styles. 

By 1950 Villa's band had grown to include as many as twelve members at a time, capable of handling a broad range of instrumental combinations, as well as more complex musical arrangements. In trying to make his orquesta more sophisticated than rival bands, he went so far as to fire members who did not learn to read music. For a period of twelve years, Beto Villa y su Orquesta toured throughout the United States, recorded more than a hundred singles on 78 rpm, and produced over a dozen LPs for Disco Ideal. Villa also recorded ranchera singles with Lydia Mendoza and the duo Carmen y Laura. 

In 1960 Villa stopped touring because of health problems. During his career, he created a new musical style for Mexican Americans, the orquesta Tejana, which helped them express both their ranchero (country) and jaitón (cosmopolitan) identities. In 1983, three years before his death, Villa was inducted into the TMA Hall of Fame. He died in Corpus Christi on November 1, 1986. In 2000 he was an inaugural inductee into the Tejano R.O.O.T.S. Hall of Fame. 

(Edited from Texas State Historical Association)

Barbara Cook born 25 October 1927

Barbara Cook (October 25, 1927 – August 8, 2017) was an American actress and singer who first came to prominence in the 1950s as the lead in Broadway musicals from which she won a Tony Award. She continued performing mostly in theatre until the mid-1970s, when she began a second career as a cabaret and concert singer. She also made numerous recordings. 

Barbara Cook was born in Atlanta, but at an early age gravitated to New York to study singing. Her debut on Broadway was at the Broadhurst in May 1951 as Sandy in the Fain-Harburg musical Flahooley. The following year she married her drama coach David LeGrant. In 1953 she was Annie in Oklahoma! which she then toured throughout the US until 1956.That year Leonard Bernstein and the director Tyrone Guthrie auditioned her for the world premier of Bernstein’s new musical Candide which was to open at the Martin Beck Theatre that December. Barbara Cook’s electrifying portrayal of Cunegonde. Dressed in a ball gown with large ruffles at the shoulder and wearing a heavily plaited wig stunned the audience with her singing of the coloratura aria Glitter and be Gay. 

Barbara Cook & Robert Preston

Candide was not a commercial success and only ran for 73 performances, and in 1957 Barbara Cook took the role of Julie Jordan in a revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel before being cast in the show that made her name more widely known. The Music Man opened at the Majestic Theatre in 1957 and Barbara Cook played the little town librarian Marian opposite Robert Preston (the part had been turned down by both Danny Kaye and Gene Kelly). While he belted out Seventy Six Trombones as if it was a Souza march she, one critic wrote, “had the breath of a long distance runner”. It was a triumph and Barbara Cook won a Tony Award for her performance. 

She followed up with a suitably prim and proper Anna in The King and I and, in 1963, appeared for eight months in Bock and Harnick’s She Loves Me, with Daniel Massey. Connoisseurs of Broadway musicals recall the show with much affection and Allan Jay Lerner (author of My Fair Lady) always considered it, and Barbara Cook’s performance, underrated. 

                             

At the beginning of the Sixties Barbara Cook was on Broadway in Show Boat (1966) and in her first straight play (Any Wednesday, 1965). Then she appeared in several major coast-to-coast tours (notably as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, 1967). By then, however, her marriage had broken down and she was struggling with depression, alcoholism and obesity, ballooning from a svelte eight stone to more than 17 stone. As a result she found it difficult to obtain bookings. “I was a real non-functioning alcoholic,” she recalled later: “Dishes, always in the sink. The kitchen a mess. The bathroom a mess. Everything a mess.” At one point, she recalled, “I was so broke that I was stealing food from the supermarket by slipping sandwich meat in my coat pocket.” 

But with the help of the pianist and composer Wally Harper, with whom she would collaborate for 30 years, she gave up drinking and reinvented herself as a solo artist, working in small New York clubs and finally launching her comeback at a sensational concert at Carnegie Hall in 1975. She went on to perform with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl and gave solo concerts throughout America. While she continued to struggle with her weight, she eventually accepted that she would never win: “I decided that I had to try to be comfortable with my body as it was, because otherwise you just live in a closet, you don’t go out,” she said. 

Barbara Cook first appeared in Britain in 1978 when she did a short season at the Country Cousins in Chelsea, a tiny club on the Kings Road. She won nightly standing ovations but retained memories of “sharing the billing with the police, radio and taxi calls that came crackling over the PA system”. Somehow it never dulled her performance.

In 1986 the singer David Kernan mounted a season at the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden called Showpeople ’86. Barbara Cook’s show – Wait ’til You Hear Her – immediately transferred to the West End. In July 1994 she returned to the big stage with a series of concerts at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre. Amid a programme of new songs and much-loved favourites her rendering of Love Don’t Need a Reason was particularly poignant. 

In 1997, when Barbara Cook returned to London to celebrate her 70th birthday (helped by a few friends like Elaine Stritch) at the Albert Hall, one critic described her as “the greatest singer in popular music today”. In 2001, as exuberant as ever and singing with all the old panache, she returned to the West End and played to sell-out audiences. In June 2008, at the age of 80, she appeared in Strictly Gershwin at the Royal Albert Hall, with the full company of the English National Ballet. 

She continued to perform until June 2017 when she took to the stage, singing from a wheelchair, to promote the publication of her memoir Then & Now. Cook died from respiratory failure at her home in Manhattan on August 8, 2017, at age 89. The marquee lights of the Broadway theaters were dimmed for one minute in tribute to Cook on August 9. 

(Edited from The Telegraph & Wikipedia) (Also a big thank you goes to jonthesYT @ YouTube for the mp3 of Barbara Cook singing the title song from "Any Wednesday", a comedy she played on Broadway (later made into a film with Jane Fonda. Her only single from 1965)