Carol Channing born 31 January 1921

Carol Elaine Channing (January 31, 1921 – January 15, 2019) was an American actress, singer, dancer and comedian who starred in Broadway and film musicals. Her characters usually had a fervent expressiveness and an easily identifiable voice, whether singing or for comedic effect. 

She was born in Seattle, Washington, the only child of George Channing, a newspaper editor, and his wife, Adelaide (nee Glaser), who were both active in the Christian Science movement. After attending high school in San Francisco and Bennington College, Vermont, where she majored in drama and dance, Channing landed a job understudying Eve Arden in the Cole Porter musical Let’s Face It! (1941) on Broadway. 

After touring on the nightclub circuit, she returned to Broadway in Lend An Ear, playing several parts, most notably as an over-energetic chorus girl in a spoof of 1920s musicals. This led to her being cast in the musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949-51), set in the 20s. As the gleefully scheming Lorelei Lee, who wants to marry a sugar daddy, Channing stopped the show with Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend. 

According to Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times: “She goes through the play like a crazed automaton – husky enough to kick in the teeth of any gentleman on the stage, but mincing coyly in high-heel shoes and looking at the confused world through big, wide starry eyes. There has never been anything like this in human society.” Channing was much closer to the character in the novel by Anita Loos than the guileless and vulnerable performance of Marilyn Monroe in the updated 1953 movie version. 

After a long run as Lorelei, Channing toured in a summer stock production of Pygmalion (1953) – she had studied George Bernard Shaw at university – before being back in her element (replacing Rosalind Russell), singing and dancing, on Broadway in Leonard Bernstein’s Wonderful Town (1953-54). In 1959, she starred in Show Business, an extended version of her one-woman nightclub act, in which she did a hilarious impersonation of Marlene Dietrich.

It was not long before Channing was to embody the role with which she would always be associated. The life-loving Dolly Levi, a middle-aged widow, a matchmaker, schemer, meddler and opportunist, decides it is her turn to get married – Before the Parade Passes By – and chooses Horace Vandergelder, a wealthy, elderly skinflint. The show, based on Thornton Wilder’s play The Matchmaker, opened at the St James
theatre, New York, in January 1964.

Carol and Ginger Rogers

She had started a parallel career on television, making guest appearances on almost every variety show in existence for hosts such as Perry Como, George Burns, Carol Burnett, Dean Martin, Dinah Shore and Red Skelton. However, she made very few feature films, perhaps because her exuberant personality was unsuited to the cinema. Nevertheless, she made an impression in her first credited big screen role in The First Traveling Saleslady (1956) set in 1897 Texas. As the friend of the eponymous saleswoman (Ginger Rogers), Channing got to belt out A Corset Can Do a Lot for a Lady and to seduce a cavalry lieutenant (the young Clint Eastwood). 

                              

Some years later, now even more famous in the US for Dolly Levi, Channing landed her best film role in the 20s flapper-era lampoon Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) for which she was nominated for an Oscar as best supporting actress. As the eccentric socialite widow Muzzy Van Hossmere, shrieking “Raspberries!” at odd moments, singing I’m a Jazz Baby and doing a tap dance on a xylophone, Channing stole the picture from Julie Andrews (in the title role), Mary Tyler Moore and Bea Lillie. In Skidoo (1968), Otto Preminger’s curious attempt to satirise the 60s psychedelic culture, Channing sang the title song – a hippy anthem – and did a wild LSD-fuelled striptease for the faded pop star Angie, played by Frankie Avalon. 

Back on Broadway, her verve undiminished, she revisited her two signature roles, in Lorelei (1974), a slightly rewritten version of Gentleman Prefer Blondes, and in Hello, Dolly! in New York (1978) and at the Drury Lane theatre, London (1979). When she returned once more to the show in 1995, at the age of 74, Variety wrote: “Certain products of western civilisation exist beyond criticism and the ravages of time: Grant’s Tomb, the Hollywood sign, Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly!” She received a Tony lifetime achievement award that year. 

In 2003, she married Harry Kullijian, her childhood sweetheart. Their relationship was chronicled in the documentary Carol Channing: Larger Than Life, which was released in 2012, the year after Harry’s death. Channing’s memoir, Just Lucky I Guess, was published in 2002. 

Channing died from natural causes on January 15, 2019, at her home in Rancho Mirage, California, at the age of 97, shortly before her 98th birthday. On January 16, the lights on Broadway were dimmed in honor of Channing. Her ashes were sprinkled between the Curran Theatre and the Geary Theater in San Francisco. 

(Edited from Guardian obit by Ronald Bergan & Wikipedia)

 

Hank Marr born 30 January 1927

Hank Marr (30 January 1927 – 16 March 2004) was a soul jazz and hard bop Hammond B3 organist and pianist, probably best known for his many albums recorded under his own name for the Double-time record label. 

Hank was born Henry L. Marr  in Flytown, Columbus, Ohio. He began playing piano at an early age and would often jam with childhood friend and saxophonist Ronnie Kirk. Marr was originally self-taught and didn’t receive any formal music training until he attended Ohio State University after serving time in the military. Marr became interested in jazz organ-specifically the Hammond B3-after seeing “Wild” Bill Davis perform at Birdland in New York. But Marr didn’t form his own organ trio until after witnessing the music of the B3’s greatest practitioner, Jimmy Smith, at Atlantic City in the mid-1950s. 

Along with tenor saxophonist Rusty Bryant he co-led a group that toured for several years, beginning in 1958. He made a string of rock-solid records for the Cincinnati-based King label that showcased his soulful, grooving, no-BS style on the Hammond B-3. His approach owed more to elder statesmen like Wild Bill Davis and Count Basie than modernists like Larry Young and Big John Patton, but it kicked like a mule on up-tempo tunes and got low-down and gritty as a snake’s navel on the blues.  Marr had two minor hit singles, "The Greasy Spoon" (U.S. No. 101, 1964) and "Silver Spoon" (U.S. No. 134, 1965).  Influential DJ Alan Freed at one point adopted Marr’s “All Night Long” as a theme song. 

                             

As with so many other organ innovators, the acid-jazz movement made new opportunities for Marr, and he re-emerged with a string of recent discs for the Double-Time label that compare very well with his vintage recordings. On the Hank Marr Quartets’ great out-of-print LP Live at the Club 502, recorded in ’64 at a Columbus nightspot, the leader shared the spotlight with guitarist Wilbert Longmire, whose slightly distorted sound and lithe phrasing are real taste treats for greasy-organ-juice lovers. 

Ramsey Lewis, Nancy Wilson & Marr 

Marr’s recorded output of albums wasn’t voluminous. Clearly, the livelihood of musicians like Marr depended very strongly on gigs in Eastern and Mid-Western clubs that tended to the growing audience of organ jazz in the wake of pioneer Jimmy Smith’s popularity. 

Marr later led a group that featured James Blood Ulmer. Ulmer first recorded professionally with Marr in 1967–1968; they had previously toured in 1966–1967. Guitarists Freddie King (1961–1962) and Wilbert Longmire (1963–1964) also did recordings with Marr. In 1966 he recorded some sides for Detroit‘s Wingate label including  ‘Marr’s Groove’ and ‘White House Party.’ 

Marr with James Brown

In the late 1960s, Marr performed in a duo with guitarist Floyd Smith in Atlantic City, New Jersey. During the 1960s and 1970s, he performed in Las Vegas, on "The Johnny Carson Show", "The Mike Douglas Show", "The Merv Griffin Show" and worked as TV star George Kirby's musical director. 

Marr with Arthur Prysock

In the eighties, Marr concentrated on teaching and lecturing at Ohio State, eventually becoming an associate professor of jazz studies. Though he never enjoyed national recognition, Marr was a hometown hero. In 1990 the City of Columbus honoured him by naming August 12 “Marvellous Hank Marr Day” and later the city  gave him the Continuing Legacy Award as part of its Columbus Music Awards.  Having spent ten years as George Kirby's musical director before teaching in Columbus, Ohio, Marr's recording background and involvement with jazz organ faded to some extent from the public consciousness until there was a resurgence of interest in his music. 

He recorded three albums in the nineties on the Double Time label, among them Hank And Frank in 1996, with tenorist Frank Foster. He continued to perform at festivals, in clubs, with the Columbus Jazz Orchestra, and throughout the IAJE Conference . In 1999, Marr along with Wilbert Longmire and Greg Rockingham, celebrated his 72^nd birthday with a  gig at the Elbow Room in Chicago, which celebrated the keyboardist’s 72nd birthday.  He then gave a rare solo piano performance at the  Jazz Record Mart in Warbash. 

Along with Hank’s celebrity status as a member of the jazz elite, he was a dedicated and gifted educator. In recognition of over fifty years as a performer, teacher, arranger and conductor, the Jazz Arts Group established the Hank Marr High School Jazz Award as a tribute to this special individual. This award  recognizes outstanding high school musicians and their dedication jazz performance. 

He died Hank in Columbus’ Grant Hospital, March 16, 2005, after a brief bout with cardiac illness. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, Jazz Arts Group, Chicago Reader, IMDb, Flophouse Magazine, ProQuest, Arnett Howard’s blog, Jazz Times & Findagrave)

Here’s a video of "City Lights" from the live CD "Live @ The 501" by Organic Chemistry - Tom Carroll on Guitar, Hank Marr on B3, and Jim Rupp on Drums.  This recording was made in February 2001 at the 501 Jazz Bar in Columbus, Ohio, during the Ohio Music Educators Convention. 

Jeanne Lee born 29 January 1939

Jeanne Lee (January 29, 1939 – October 25, 2000) was an American jazz singer, poet and composer. Best known for a wide range of vocal styles she mastered, Lee collaborated with numerous distinguished composers and performers who included Gunter Hampel, Andrew Cyrille, Ran Blake, Carla Bley, Anthony Braxton, Marion Brown, Archie Shepp, Mal Waldron, and many others. 

Jeanne Lee was born in New York, United States. Her father, S. Alonzo Lee, was a concert and church singer whose work influenced her at an early age. She was educated at the Walden School (a private school), and subsequently at Bard College, where she studied child psychology, literature and dance. During her time at Bard she created choreography for pieces by various classical and jazz composers, ranging from Johann Sebastian Bach to Arnold Schoenberg. 

                Here’s “Season In The Sun” from above album.

                              

In 1961 she graduated from Bard College with a B.A. degree. That year she performed as a duo at the Apollo Theater's Amateur Night contest with pianist Ran Blake, a fellow Bard alumnus, and after winning made her first record, The Newest Sound Around. The album gained considerable popularity in Europe, where Lee and Blake toured in 1963, but went unnoticed in the US. At this point, Lee's major influence was Abbey Lincoln. 

During the mid-1960s, Lee was exploring sound poetry, happenings, Fluxus-influenced art, and other multidisciplinary approaches to art. She was briefly married to sound poet David Hazelton, and composed music for the sound poetry by poets such as Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles, becoming active in the California art scene of the time. In the late 1960s, she returned to the jazz scene and started performing and recording, quickly establishing herself as one of the most distinctively independent and creative artists in the field. 

Already a few years after her return she had a major role in Carla Bley's magnum opus, Escalator over the Hill (1971), and recorded albums with eminent musicians including Archie Shepp and Marion Brown. In 1967, while in Europe, Lee began a long association with vibraphonist and composer Gunter Hampel, whom she eventually married. They had a son, Ruomi Lee-Hampel, and a daughter, Cavana Lee-Hampel. 

In 1976, she represented the African-American spiritual musical tradition in John Cage's Apartment House 1776, which was composed for the U.S. Bicentennial. The experience inspired Lee to devote more attention to her composing, and create extended works. The immediate result was Prayer for Our Time, a jazz oratorio. 

In the 1980s and 90s, Jeanne Lee made a number of important recordings, two of which she produced: Conspiracy, Travellin’ in Soul-Time, Ambrosia Mama, You Stepped Out of a Cloud, and Natural Affinities. The 1994 Lee/Waldron Duo album After Hours, released on Owl/EMI, received the Diapason D’Or among other awards. That same year, she recorded Nuba, which was co-composed with drummer Andrew Cyrille and saxophonist Jimmy Lyons. One track from this album, titled “Nuba One,” was included in soundtrack to the 1999 Jim Jarmusch film Ghost Dog: the Way of the Samurai. Lee’s performance of “Don’t Worry Now, Worry Later” was included in the Smithsonian collection The Jazz Singers 1919-1994, which was nominated for a 1997 Grammy. 

She sang on a large number of albums by Gunter Hampel. In her late years, she ran the Jeanne Lee Ensemble, which performed a fusion of poetry, music and dance, and collaborated and toured with pianist Mal Waldron. Lee was also active as educator. She received a MA in Education from New York University in 1972 and taught at various institutions both in the US and in Europe. She published a number of short features on music for Amsterdam News and various educational writings, including a textbook on the history of jazz music for grades four through seven. 

Lee died of cancer on October 25, 2000, in Tijuana, Mexico, aged 61.  

(Edited from Wikipedia & New Music USA)

Here’s a clip of "I thought about you" Recorded in Marciac, France. 2000. Jeanne Lee,voice, Mal Waldron,piano, Eric Barrett (tenor sax), Jean-Jacques Avenel (bass),  John Betsh (drums).

Cash McCall born 28 January 1941

Cash McCall ( January 28, 1941 – April 20, 2019) was an American electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He was best known for his 1966 R&B hit "When You Wake Up". Over his long career, his musical style evolved from gospel music to soul music to the blues. 

Born Morris Dollison, Jr. in New Madrid, Missouri, he spent his early years on Chicago’s near North Side, his father thriving as a milkman in the big city. But little Morris and his siblings had to learn a very different way of life when Morris Sr. decided to move his family to Mississippi. There they picked cotton, planted vegetables, and attended school and church in a segregated environment that was very different from what they’d previously experienced in Chicago. Mississippi was also where the youngster first learned to play guitar—on a piece of baling wire nailed to the side of their home—and where he fell in love with the blues that he would later play so masterfully. 

After living in several out-of-the-way destinations in Mississippi and Arkansas, Morris followed his brother Leon into the Army. To make extra money, he trained to be a paratrooper, but an accident while on field maneuvers landed him in the hospital for an extended stretch. Once he was fully healed and finished with his military service, Morris gravitated first back to Missouri, where he dabbled in singing with an amateur gospel quartet, and then up to Chicago, where his mother, sister, and younger brother had settled. He sang and played guitar or electric bass with a series of well-regarded quartets: the Jubilee Hummingbirds, the Pilgrim Jubilees, the Gospel Songbirds (where he first met Otis Clay), and for a memorable three weeks, the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi when they needed a replacement guitarist. 

But as was the case for so many of his sanctified cohorts, the secular arena kept calling his name. Morris secured sideman gigs with soul star Alvin Cash, blues guitarist L.C. McKinley, harpist Alex “Easy Baby” Randle, and versatile guitarist Lefty Bates, learning the R&B side of the business along the way. A long stint as guitarist with Saxie Russell and the Starfires took him all over the city as the funky band played intimate lounges and cavernous dance halls. 

                              

He recorded his first secular single, the two-part workout "Earth Worm," for One-derful Records in 1963 as Maurice Dollison. In 1966, he made a demo of a soul number called "When You Wake Up" that he had penned with producer Monk Higgins. He was doubtless shocked to learn of its subsequent release on the Thomas label, billed to one Cash McCall! The tune proved a national R&B hit, sending the newly christened McCall on the road with Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars  with  Lou Christie and Mitch Ryder.  Cash McCall" had been a 1955 novel by Cameron Hawley which spawned a 1960 movie starring James Garner as Cash McCall, released six years before the record company changed Dollison's name. 

Subsequent releases for both Thomas and Checker Records failed to chart. These included the song It's Wonderful to Be in Love". In 1967, McCall co-wrote "That's How It Is (When You're in Love)", a Top 30 R&B hit for Otis Clay. Under the tutelage of Willie Dixon, McCall went on to become a session musician and songwriter for Chess Records. In the late 1960s, McCall, along with Jimmy Dawkins and Johnny Twist, played guitar on some early recordings by George "Wild Child" Butler. McCall gravitated towards the blues in the 1970s. 

In 1983 McCall released his first solo record in ten years, No More Doggin', and followed it up with Cash Up Front in 1987.  The collection included accompaniment by such notables such Nathan East and Welton Gite (bass); Chuck Findley (flugelhorn, trumpet); Les McCann and Richard Tee (piano); Phil Upchurch (rhythm guitar); and Hank Cicalo (sound engineer) and Bernie Grundman (mastering). 

McCall co-produced Willie Dixon's Grammy Award–winning Hidden Charms (1988) and played in Dixon's All-Stars band. Since then he has toured as a solo artist and appeared with the Chicago Rhythm and Blues Kings, for which he has written several songs. He has also provided backing to the singer known as Big Twist and performed in the Chicago Blues Review. McCall's songs have been recorded by the Blind Boys of Alabama, the Mighty Reapers, Margie Evans, Tyrone Davis and Mitty Collier. 

Despite being stricken with lung cancer, he recorded Going Back Home in Memphis in 2018 and performed a rousing “I Just Want To Make Love To You” at a June benefit for him at the former Chess Records building at 2120 South Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Going Back Home was released in January 2019. He died just months later, on April 20, 2019. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, AllMusic & Cash McCall Music)

Hot Lips Page born 27 January 1908

Oran Thaddeus "Hot Lips" Page (January 27, 1908 – November 5, 1954) was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and bandleader. He was known as a scorching soloist and powerful vocalist. He was one of the most flexible of trumpeters, demonstrating a broad tone and a wide range on the instrument. He is considered by many to be one of the founders of what came to be known as rhythm and blues. From 1929, he made over 200 recordings, most as a leader, for Bluebird, Vocalion, Decca and Harmony Records, among others. 

Hot Lips Page was born in Dallas, Texas, United States, to a schoolteacher and musician mother. He moved with his mother to Corsicana where he began attending Corsicana High School and later Texas College while also working at the oilfields. His earliest gigs were in circuses and minstrel shows while also backing such blues singers as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Ida Cox..Page's main trumpet influence was Louis Armstrong, though throughout his career he cited other local trumpeters, including Harry Smith (Kansas City) and Benno Kennedy (San Antonio) as being early influences. 

In the mid-1920s, while still a teenager, he is believed to have appeared with Troy Floyd and His Orchestra in San Antonio, Texas, and with Eddie and Sugar Lou, a dance band headquartered in Tyler, Texas, though no documentation has been unearthed to support his presence in either band. He also claimed to have appeared around 1925 with a band in Shreveport, Louisiana, known as Goog and His Jazz Babies and with a band in New Orleans known as French's Jazz Orchestra, though no documentation has been discovered. 

He played with Walter Page’s Blue Devlis from 1928 to 1931, then joined Bennie Moten Orchestra, then freelanced in Kansas City where in 1936  he was briefly with Count Basie.  Although not a regular member of the band, Page appeared as a vocalist, emcee and hot trumpet soloist in Basie's Reno Club orchestra. The Reno Club, in downtown Kansas City, had a floor show, which included Page and vocalist Jimmy Rushing. Basie's band was just starting to build their reputation, but  that summer of 1936., on the eve of Basie's national success and at the beckoning of Louis Armstrong's manager, Joe Glaser, Page decided to become a solo artist- a  move generally regarded as having crippled a potentially illustrious career. 

                   

Page's career as a bandleader had an auspicious start, with sold-out appearances and an extended run at Harlem's Smalls Paradise in the summer of 1937, but by 1939 he was struggling to maintain a regular working band. Nonetheless, he led several bands and combos of his own, particularly on New York's 52nd Street, where he appeared from 1938 or 1939, and in many venues in Harlem. 

Hot Lips with Artie Shaw

Page toured extensively throughout the southern United States, and throughout the northeast and Canada at the head of as many as 13 different big bands during the 1930s and 1940s. He appeared briefly with Bud Freeman's Orchestra in 1938, and was a featured vocalist and hot soloist with Artie Shaw's Symphonic Swing Orchestra in 1941 and 1942, with whom he recorded over 40 sides, during which time he attracted much publicity. 

Hot Lips with Sidney Bechet

He was the leader of the house band at the Apollo Theater during the early 1940s. Page was known as "Mr. After Hours" to his many friends for his ability to take on challengers in late night impromptu jam sessions, and he was recorded at Harlem's Minton's Playhouse in 1941 playing in a proto-bebop style. He recorded for the Mezzrow-Bechet Septet on two consecutive dates in 1945, as Pappa Snow White, with Mezz Mezzrow, Sidney Bechet, Jimmy Blythe, Jr., Danny Barker, Pops Foster, and Sid Catlett, and on the second session with Cousin Joe on vocals. 

Louis Jordan with Hot Lips

Between 1938 and 1954 he cut several tracks, including the 1938 record "Skull Duggery" on the Bluebird label. He recorded "Pagin' Mr. Page" in 1944 and "St. James Infirmary" in 1947. His band backed the singer Wynonie Harris on the session that produced the hit "Good Rocking Tonight", though Page was never credited as the leader. He recorded duets with Pearl Bailey on "The Hucklebuck" and "Baby, It's Cold Outside" in 1949. He traveled to Europe in 1949 and appeared at Salle Pleyel in the first international jazz festival there, and returned to Europe at least twice for extended tours in the early 1950s mainly as a soloist. 

In 1953 his health began to deteriorate and in October 1954 he suffered a heart attack .Seven days later, on November 5, he died of complications from pneumonia in New York City. He is buried in Dallas Cemetery. Page was married twice. He had one child with his first wife, Myrtle, and two children with his second wife, Elizabeth. Page is an inductee in the Houston Institute for Culture's Texas Music Hall of Fame. His premature passing left a large hole in the jazz world. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, THSA on line) 

Here’s a clip of Pearl Bailey & Hot Lips Page singing "Baby, It's Cold Outside" on The Ed Sullivan Show, October 9, 1949.

Sally Starr born 26 January 1923

Sally Starr (January 25, 1923 – January 27, 2013) was a prominent 1950s and 1960s celebrity television personality. Using a cowgirl persona, she appealed to local TV audiences of several generations of children through American radio, Broadway stage, movies and as a recording artist for more than sixty years. Fans remained loyal in the Philadelphia metropolitan area (referred to locally as the Delaware Valley), and embraced her cowgirl personality as part of their own family identity, and sometimes referred to her as "Aunt Sally" or "Our Gal Sal." 

Starr was born as Alleen Mae Beller in Kansas City, Missouri, and legally changed her name to Starr in 1941. She was the second oldest of five girls. Her parents, Charles and Bertha Beller, encouraged her to enter the world of show business, for which she exhibited both talent and ambition. At the age of twelve, she and her sister Mildred, who were billed as the "Little Missouri Maids," made their debut on the CBS radio program "Brush Creek Follies". 

Sally with Jesse Rogers

Starr sang and performed country music throughout her young adult life. By the end of the 1940s, she became the regional voice of the Pepsi-Cola Company and did all their commercial spots, leading to a full-time gig in radio. During the 1940s Starr married Jesse Rogers and the two performed on radio programs such as Hayloft Hoe-Down, which was produced in the old Town Hall in Center City. Sally also formed the band, "The Saddle Buddies," which performed in various clubs in the area. 

Having already mastered radio and the stage, Starr’s next stop was television. On Oct. 3, 1955, Starr became the hostess of Popeye Theater, on WFIL-TV (now WPVI) which eventually became Philadelphia’s highest-rated children’s program. During the show, Starr presented half-hour western TV shows, cartoons, Three Stooges comedies, live acts and special features. She distinguished her character by donning flashy cowgirl regalia, including a cowgirl hat, boots, and gun with holster, often dressing in bright red blouses adorned with fringes and shiny stars. 

                     

Her opening line was, "Hope you feel as good as you look, 'cause you sure look good to your gal Sal." She closed with "May the Good Lord be blessing you and your family. Bye for now!" The theme song of the show was a variation on the theme from Wagon Train by Jerome Moross. Sally also had a country music radio program on Philly’s WJMJ. Public appearances were a staple part of her entertainment promotions. Many of these events also featured her horses "Pal", "Silver", "Cane", and "Rusty". 

Aside from her television and recording career, Starr appeared in the 1965 Three Stooges feature film, The Outlaws Is Coming, as sharpshooter Belle Starr. She had small roles in such films as The In Crowd and Mannequin Two: On the Move.  Aa vocalist, she recorded Our Gal Sal, backed by Bill Haley & His Comets in 1958, selling thousands of records under the Clymax label. Haley also co-wrote "A.B.C. Rock" and "Rocky the Rockin' Rabbit" for Starr, which were released as singles (the former would later be covered by Haley himself; the latter was released in 1959 as a standalone single unconnected with the album). 

Although Our Gal Sal was out of print by the 1960s, in the 1970s and 1980s several of these recordings reappeared on a series of compilation albums put out by the UK-based Rollercoaster Records label entitled Rockaphilly. The first top-rated female disc jockey in the country, she also worked as an announcer, writer and producer while also appearing on stage and in movies. In her later years, Starr operated a pizza/ice cream restaurant in Atco, New Jersey. She was so loved by her fan base that they even helped her financially after her home in Florida was destroyed in a fire in 1987. 

On New Year's Eve in 1992, Starr suffered a severe heart attack. Following medical treatment, she completed her recuperation during early 1993 while residing at the home of her sister, Mary Boyd. Hundreds of her fans reportedly sent get well cards, artwork, and gifts. Starr wrote an autobiography, Me, Thee & TV, which was published in 1994. Starr was inducted into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia Hall of Fame in 1995. She continued to make public appearances near her home in Waterford Township in southern New Jersey in her senior years.

She also hosted a radio show on WVLT, 92.1 FM in Vineland, New Jersey until retiring in September 2006. Starr died at a Berlin, New Jersey nursing home on January 27, 2013, two days after her 90th birthday, from undisclosed causes. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & NBC Philadelphia)