Bill Haley born 6 July 1925

William John Clifton Haley (July 6, 1925 – February 9, 1981) was a pioneering American rock and roll musician. He is credited by many with first popularizing this form of music in the early 1950s with his group Bill Haley & His Comets and has sold over 60 million records worldwide.

Haley was born in Highland Park, Michigan, and raised in Booth's Corner, Pennsylvania. Many sources state that Haley was born in 1927, apparently due to Haley taking two years off his age for publicity purposes in the 1950s.

He was blinded in his left eye as a child due to a failed operation. According to biographer John Swenson, Haley later adopted his distinctive spit-curl hairstyle to distract attention from his blind eye. The hair style caught on as a 50s-style signature, although Haley and others had worn the hairstyle much earlier.

In 1946, Haley joined his first professional group, a Pennsylvania-based western swing band called the Down 

Homers. As Haley became experienced on the professional music scene, he created several groups. These included the Four Aces of Western Swing and the Range Drifters. With the Four Aces, he made some country hit singles in the late 1940s, for Cowboy Records. During this time he worked as a touring musician and, beginning in 1947, as musical director at radio station WPWA in Philadelphia. Many of Haley's early recordings from this period would not be released until after his death.

After disbanding the Four Aces and briefly trying a solo career

using the names Jack Haley and Johnny Clifton, Haley formed a new group called the Saddlemen around 1950, recording for several labels. In 1951, Haley was signed to Dave Miller's Philadelphia-based Holiday Records and began to move toward the rockabilly genre, recording "Rocket 88," and in, 1952, "Rock the Joint" for Miller's larger Essex label. These recordings both sold in the 75,000-100,000 range in the Pennsylvania-New England region.

In 1951, Haley crossed paths with The Treniers while playing in Wildwood, New Jersey. Haley arranged for their song, "Rock a Beatin' Boogie," to be recorded by two bands: the Esquire Boys in 1952 and The Treniers themselves in 1953.  During the Labor Day weekend in 1952, the Saddlemen were renamed "Bill Haley with Haley's Comets," inspired by a popular mispronunciation of Halley's Comet. In 1953, Haley's recording of "Crazy Man, Crazy" hit the American charts, considered by many to be the first true "rock and roll" song to do so. Soon after, the band's name was revised to Bill Haley & His Comets.

                              

"Rock Around the Clock" was written for Haley in 1953, but he was unable to record it until April 12, 1954. Initially, it was relatively unsuccessful, remaining on the charts for only one week. However, Haley soon scored a major worldwide hit with a cover version of Big Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle and Roll," which went 
on to sell a million copies and became the first ever rock song to enter British singles charts in December 1954 and became a Gold Record.

Then, when "Rock Around the Clock" appeared behind the opening credits of the 1955 hit film, Blackboard Jungle, starring Glenn Ford, the song soared to the top of the American Billboard charts for eight weeks. It launched a musical revolution that opened the doors for the likes of Elvis Presley and others. "Rock Around the Clock" was the first record ever to sell over one million copies in both Britain and Germany. 

Thus, in 1957, Haley became the first major American rock singer to tour Europe. Haley continued to score hits throughout the 1950s and starred in the first rock and roll musical movies, Rock Around the Clock and Don't Knock the Rock, both in 1956. His star was soon surpassed in the United States by the younger, sexier Elvis Presley, but Haley continued to be a major star in Latin America, Mexico, and Europe throughout the 1960s.

A self-admitted alcoholic, Haley fought a battle with liquor well 

into the 1970s. Nonetheless, he and his band continued to be a popular touring act, enjoying a career resurgence in the late 1960s with the rock and roll revival movement and signing of a lucrative record deal with the European Sonet Records label. After performing for Queen Elizabeth II at a command performance in 1979, Haley made his final performances in South Africa in May and June of 1980.

Prior to the South African tour, he was diagnosed with a brain tumour, and a planned tour of Germany in the fall of 1980 was cancelled. He soon retired to his home in Harlingen, Texas where he died early on the morning February 9, 1981. Media reports immediately following his death indicated Haley displayed deranged and erratic behavior in his final weeks, although there is little information about Haley's final days. The exact cause of his death is controversial. Media reports, supported by Haley's death certificate, suggest he died of "natural causes most likely heart attack." Members of Haley's family, however, contest that he died from the brain tumour.

In 1987, Haley was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

(Edited from The New World Encyclopedia)

Tommy "Snuff" Garrett born 5 July 1939

Snuff Garrett (July 5, 1938 – December 16, 2015) was an American record producer whose most famous work was during the 1960s and 1970s.

Thomas Lesslie Garrett was born in Dallas on July 5, 1938. His father, also named Thomas, was a lawyer and bail bondsman. His mother was the former Lila Ables. He got his nickname in South Oak Cliff High School. It was derived from Levi Garrett, a 
popular brand of snuff.  He quit high school in the ninth grade, was hired as an errand boy at a local radio station and then left for Hollywood with the hope of getting into the music business, but the closest he got was selling records in a store on Sunset Boulevard. Returning to Texas, he talked his way into disc jockey jobs in Dallas, Wichita Falls and Lubbock.

At seventeen, Garrett was a disc jockey in Lubbock, Texas, where he met Buddy Holly. He is often still mentioned on the Lubbock oldies station KDAV on a program hosted by his friend Jerry "Bo" Coleman. Garrett also worked in radio in Wichita Falls, Texas, where he performed on-air stunts. On February 3, 1959, Garrett broadcast his own tribute show to Holly after he was killed (along with Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper) in a plane crash in Iowa.

Snuff with Bobby Vee

In 1959, Garrett became a staff producer at Liberty Records in Hollywood at the age of 19, after having joined the label to work in the promotions department. Although not a musician, Garrett showed he had a knack for finding hit songs, going on to produce a string of hits and becoming the label's head of A&R until he left Liberty in 1966. His first job as producer for the label was on Johnny Burnette's "Settin' the Woods on Fire" on July 9, 1959. Among Garrett's roster of artists were Bobby Vee, Johnny Burnette, Gene McDaniels, Buddy Knox, Walter Brennan, Gary Lewis & the Playboys, and Del Shannon.

Snuff  & Leon Russell 

He was also responsible for hiring Phil Spector for a short period as an assistant producer. Many of Garrett's hit singles came from songs by the Brill Building songwriters in New York City. Others who worked closely with Garrett include future recording star Leon Russell, who often arranged his productions, and Lenny Waronker, Liberty co-founder Simon Waronker's son who became a producer in his own right and eventually president of Warner Bros. Records. Later, after leaving Liberty, Garrett worked with Cher and Sonny & Cher and had his own record labels, Snuff Garrett Records and Viva Records, which the catalogue was licensed to Warner Bros during the 1980s.

                               

Between 1961 and 1969, he released a series of over 25 instrumental albums, featuring solo guitar work by Tommy Tedesco, on Liberty Records by "The 50 Guitars of Tommy Garrett", six of which appeared on the Billboard Top LPs chart. 

In 1966, Garrett produced an album by singer-songwriter Sonny 
Curtis on the Viva label, The 1st of Sonny Curtis, which contains some of Curtis' most popular tunes, including "Walk Right Back" "My Way of Life", "Hung up in your Eyes", and "I Fought the Law and the Law Won.” Garrett was invited early on to produce the Monkees, but a test session did not go well, with the Monkees preferring to work with Boyce and Hart.

In addition to his hits with Sonny & Cher for Kapp Records and MCA Records in the 1970s, Garrett also produced Vicki Lawrence's "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" for Bell Records (a song written by Lawrence's then-husband Bobby Russell), and Tanya Tucker's "Lizzie and the Rainman" for MCA. 
Both of these songs had been intended for Cher; but her husband and manager at the time, Sonny Bono, thought it might offend Cher's Southern fans. Other artists produced by Garrett in the 1970s included Brenda Lee and "singing cowboy" Roy Rogers.

Garrett worked regularly with the Johnny Mann Singers and the Ron Hicklin Singers on many projects, and was responsible for the new sound of The Ray Conniff Singers in the early 1970s 

(which employed the Hicklin Singers), producing two albums with Conniff. Garrett also produced several tracks by Nancy Sinatra in the mid-1970s that were issued by Private Stock Records. In 1976, Garrett set up a sub-label of Casablanca Records, Casablanca West. The label released just one album and two singles before folding. In 1978, Garrett produced the country-oriented soundtrack of Clint Eastwood's Every Which Way but Loose, which appeared on Garrett's latter-day label, Viva Records.

In 1976, when home video was in its infancy, Garrett bought cassette rights to the old RKO, Republic and Hal Roach (Laurel and Hardy) films for what United Press International termed "a pittance." By 1980, the 800-title library of his company The 
Nostalgia Merchant was earning $2.3 million a year. "Nobody wanted cassettes four years ago ... It wasn't the first time people called me crazy. It was a hobby with me which became big business", Garrett told UPI.

Garrett lived in Bell Canyon, California in a ranch built for himself. He was was inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame, a month before he died of cancer at his ranch on December 16, 2015, at the age of 77

(Edited from Wikipedia & NY Times)

Fritz Schulz-Reichel born 4 July 1912

Fritz Schulz-Reichel (July 4, 1912 – February 14, 1990) was a German jazz and pop pianist and composer.

Fritz Schulz-Reichel was born in Meiningen, Thuringia, Germany. His father was a classical musician, and he began playing piano at the age of six. He developed an unusual technique where he played the melody of a tune with the left hand and the rhythm with the right hand. 

When the young Fritz came to Berlin in 1934 he got his first permanent engagement with the dance orchestra of the Romanian bandmaster James Kok , which was continued by Erhard Bauschke after his emigration in 1935 . Schulz-Reichel then played in the band founded by Kurt Hohenberger in 1937 and with Herb Flemming . From 1939 he accompanied Rosita Serrano and in 1942 he played with Herbert Velmer in Oslo; At that time - at least abroad - he was already considered the best German swing pianist.

When he wasn't performing in clubs in Berlin or Paris (where he was elected an honorary member of the Hot Club of France for his improvisational abilities), he wrote songs in a pop vein. In March 1943, he was called up. A year later he was wounded on the eastern front by splinters of shell in his right hand, but the doctors managed to maintain his playing ability. During the war years he played with Otto Stenzel and the orchestra of the Berliner Varietés Scala and with the Swing-Kapellmeister Heinz Wehner in the German show, which was broadcast from Oslo for soldiers. After the end of the war, Schulz-Reichel was able to return to his profession in Berlin as early as July 1945

From 1946 he participated in the former Soviet zone of occupation in the Radio Berlin dance orchestra, accompanied Walter Dobschinski, Johannes Rediske and Helmut Zacharias . In the same year he also composed his first successful hit If I see you, then I start dreaming, which followed, among others, in 1949 in the Café de la Paix in Paris, 1951 on Saturday at four and 1960 two lovers in Paris .

From 1952 he became really popular as "Schräger Otto". He was largely oriented towards the style of ragtime and Honky-Tonk pianist Winifred Atwell , which was very popular in Great  

Britain at the time ; in contrast to her, however, he played the post-war German evergreens in a ragtime-like rhythm and not on a grand piano, but on a piano with the middle string slightly out of tune (he also used pushpins to record some titles) into the felt of the sledgehammers), so a distinctive - unmistakable - quirky - sound emerged that reminded something of a bar piano from the turn of the century.

There were extensive tours to America, Australia, South Africa, not to mention performances in neighbouring European countries. And so the airline PAN AM named one of their Boeing Clippers 727 'Schräger Otto' after their famous guest (and good customer).

                            

In 1955 he was also very successful with his album of  "Crazy Otto" in the USA. The album reached number one on the charts - Schulz-Reichel was the first German to achieve this before Bert Kaempfert. With Glad Rag Doll and Smiles, the versions of two 
hits from the 1920s, he also had two successes in the single charts, which reached number 19 and 21 respectively. He won a Golden Gramophone in 1957 for selling a million albums in a knees-up pseudo-ragtime style.

A medley of German melodies titled The Crazy Otto in the style of Fritz Schulz-Reichel by American ragtime pianist Johnny Maddox stayed in the US charts as number 2 for a full 14 weeks in the same year and the first was sold over a million times Ragtime recording at all. Both Reichel and Maddox were subsequently known as "Crazy Otto", to some confusion.

In the 1960s Schulz-Reichel succeeded with a series of records, each with supplemented titles of the type: "In the bar ..." or "In a bar ...", presenting danceable medley's well-known songs as high-quality "bar music" The pub piano sound described above is only used in a few titles (e.g. in the Charleston medley of the album In der Bar next door).

In 1965 he had his own show called “Man should be able to play the piano.” He also recorded  more commercially oriented albums and worked as a soloist with several radio orchestras, composed a number of film scores, appeared in numerous films and regularly appeared on television entertainment programs in the 1960's and early 1970's. He continued to perform live and on film, and remained a popular jazz favourite in Germany for many years. He died in Berlin February 14, 1990.

(Edited from Wikipedia & Bear Family)

Rhoda Scott born 3 July 1938

Rhoda Scott (born July 3, 1938) is one of the greatest American hard bop and soul jazz organist. Her technical mastery and virtuosity combined with a perfect knowledge of the sonic possibilities of the instrument make her a living myth of the Hammond B3 organ.

The daughter of an AME minister, Scott spent much of her childhood in Dorothy, New Jersey, where she learned to play organ in the churches where her father served. “My father was sent to a church that had a Hammond B3. I was about eight years old. I figured out how the organ worked by myself. Eventually I played organ during all the church services. Only then did my father realise that I had practised so much! This gave me a lot of experience. I picked up a lot from hymn books and became a self-taught sight reader”.

Soon she herself was serving frequently as organist for youth and gospel choirs at her father's and other churches. Scott later studied classical piano, but she concentrated on the organ, eventually earning a Masters' degree in music theory from the  

Manhattan School of Music. By this time she had been asked by a choir member to fill in with a small band as a jazz pianist. Enjoying the music, she agreed to stay on with the band on condition that she be allowed to play organ instead of piano. Choosing as her instrument the Hammond Organ, she soon became a preeminent jazz musician.

 “It's really the most beautiful instrument in the world,” she stated in a recent interview. “The first thing I did was to take my shoes off and work the pedals.”From then on she always played her church organ in her bare feet, and to this date she has continued the practice, earning her nicknames such as “The Barefoot Lady” and “The Barefoot Contessa.” 

Following her lead, many other performers of popular organ music now also play barefoot.

Nineteen-year-old Scott honed her jazz skills under the tutelage of Richard “Groove” Holmes. She kept a job as assistant bookkeeper in Manhattan, working jazz on the side. Subsequently, Count Basie saw her perform in North Jersey, liked what he heard and booked her into his club in New York City. Naturally, the support of Basie kick-started the career of Scott, whose rhythm and blues-drenched soul-jazz playing (and singing) comes across to full effect on the Live At The Key Club record from 1963.

“My style matured in the early 60s. My saxophone player, Joe Thomas, was a big influence. I had learned Walk On The Wild Side note for note. Joe said ‘You got to stop listening to organists. All you will be doing is play clichés. Listen to saxophone players and singers’. That was very good advice. I particularly got hung up with singers. I like my organ to sing. Singers are my most important influences. Among others, I love Morgana King, Frank Sinatra, Dakota Staton, Aretha Franklin and the classic blues singers”. (from an interview with jazz journal).

                              

Scott nonetheless grew to be disappointed by the American musical climate. A study in Paris with the renowned Nadia Boulanger in 1967 was the impetus for her move to France in 1968. She was enamored of the rebellious spirit of May 1968 and fell in love with her future husband, Raoul Saint-Yves, who passed away in 2008.

She earned recognition far greater than that accorded to her in the United States, though she often performs in the latter country as well. Rhoda recorded for a variety of labels including Verve, but the influence of Barclay on her career is immense. The label released 24 albums including compilations.

The Hammond organ is a powerful force in the world of rock, pop and soul. Either as a hot-tempered kick in the butt or restrained accompaniment, it is the glue between sections of many successful songs. Notwithstanding ups and downs, organ jazz has been popular since the late 50s, to the dismay of a considerable number 

of critics. Has Scott felt the need to defend herself as a serious jazz artist? In a recent interview she replied, “I know that, in general, organists do not mean much to white American critics. The American conservatories have jazz programmes for every instrument except organ. That’s a shame”.

Scott has an exceptional musical memory: for example, she knows more than a thousand songs by heart and she composes most of her repertoire. During the 2004 Vienna Festival, she created the "Lady Quartet" with Sophie Alour, Lisa Cat-Berro and Julie Saury. She recorded an album at Sunset, rue des Lombards in Paris.

This ambassador for the Hammond organ has been enthralling audiences worldwide for over forty years. She has played with the greatest, Ray Charles, George Benson, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Morrow.

The 82 year old isn’t resting on her laurels. Scott, based in Chartres, France, recently released her new album Movin’ Blues and continues to perform with Lady Quartet and Ladies All Stars, co operations with top-notch female jazz artists from France.  (Edited from Wikipedia & Jazz Journal which includes all quotes)

Jack Hylton born 2 July 1892

Jack Hylton (2 July 1892, Great Lever, Bolton, Lancashire – 29 January 1965, London) was an English pianist,composer, band leader and impresario.

Hylton rose to prominence during the British dance band era, being referred as the "British King of Jazz" and "The Ambassador of British Dance Music" by the musical press, not only because of his popularity which extended throughout the world, but also for his 

use of unusually large ensembles for the time and his polished arrangements. He mostly retired from the music industry after 1940, becoming a successful theatrical businessman until his death.

He was born John Greenhalgh Hilton in the Great Lever area of Bolton, Lancashire, the son of George Hilton, a cotton yarn twister. His father was an amateur singer at the local Labour Club and Jack learned piano to accompany him on the stage. Jack later sang to the customers when his father bought a pub in nearby Little Lever, becoming known as the "Singing Mill-Boy". He also performed as a relief pianist for various bands.

His early career involved moving to London as a pianist in the 400 club and playing with the Stroud Haxton Band. During the First World War he moved to be a musical director of the band

of the 20th Hussars and the Director of the Army Entertainment Division. After the First World War, Hylton formed a double act with Tommy Handley to little success, also collaborating in a number of short-lived stage shows. He then played with the "Queens" Dance Orchestra, wrote arrangements of popular songs and recorded them for His Master's Voice and Zonophone under the label "Directed by Jack Hylton" (being credited in lieu of a pay raise), his records carrying the new style of jazz-derived American dance music.

                               

After being dismissed by his own bandmates from the Queen's Hall in 1922, Hylton not only set up his own band, but also set up a number of other orchestras under the Jack Hylton Organisation. Even though he was not professionally trained for business, he brought his band to success even at a time when the Great 
Depression hit hard during the 1930s. His good reputation allowed him to make contacts with famous jazz artists of the time, and he was credited for bringing Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and others to Britain and Europe in the 1930s.

Hylton became a respected band leader with a busy schedule; his band had developed into an orchestra and toured America and Europe into the 1940s until it disbanded due to the war. During the war, he took the London Philharmonic Orchestra 

around Britain, giving promenade concerts. This helped to keep the orchestra going when its normal programme had ceased and it was on the edge of bankruptcy.

He became a director and major shareholder of the new Decca record label. At this point in his career he became an impresario discovering new stars and managing radio, film and theatre productions from Ballets to Circuses. His productions dominated the London theatres with such productions as The Merry Widow, Kiss Me Kate and Kismet.

Contracted as Advisor of Light Entertainment to Associated-Reinfusion (A-R), winners of the London weekday franchise in the recently established ITV network, he founded Jack Hylton Television Productions Ltd in that same month to produce a range of light entertainment programming exclusively for that company. At the same time he was still producing stage shows, as well as taking a leading role in organising various Royal Command Performances, until his final stage production Camelot in 1965.

He helped to develop the careers of many famous performers such as Shirley Bassey, Maurice Chevalier, Morecambe and Wise, Tony Hancock, Arthur Askey, the Crazy Gang, George Formby and Liberace. In 1965 a televised tribute to Hylton, The Stars Shine for Jack, was held in London on Sunday 30 May at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane with many artists including Arthur Askey, The Crazy Gang, Marlene Dietrich, Dickie Henderson, and Shirley Bassey.

Jack & Ennis

Hylton was married twice; firstly in 1913 in St Asaph, Flintshire, Wales, to bandleader Ennis Parkes (born Florence Parkinson). They separated in 1929, but remained relatively close until Parkes's death in 1957, despite the formation of a short-lived "Mrs. Jack Hylton Band" in the mid-1930s. During the 1930s he had a long affair with model Frederika Kogler ("Fifi"), with whom he had two daughters: Jackie (b. 1932) and Georgina (b. 1938). He also had a son, Jack (b. 1947) by a later affair with Pat Taylor, a singer and actress. He secondly married in Geneva in 1963, to Australian model and beauty queen Beverley Prowse (1932–2000) 

On 26 January 1965, complaining of chest and stomach pains, Hylton was admitted to the London Clinic. He died there three days later, on 29 January, from a heart attack, aged 72.  (Info Wikipedia)

Roberta Sherwood born 1 July 1913

Roberta Sherwood (July 1, 1913i – July 5, 1999) was an American singer, notable in part for her sudden rise to fame at the age of 43. She recorded many albums, appeared frequently on television, and sang at many of America's top nightclubs in the late 1950's and the 1960's.

Marjorie Roberta Sherwood was born in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Her father Robert

Sherwood was the manager of a travelling minstrel show; she and her sister Anne were raised on the road after their mother died. Roberta started performing in vaudeville at age 11, and the sisters soon became a vaudeville and nightclub act. In 1932 they met Broadway actor Don Lanning, who mentored Roberta and ultimately married her in 1938. They both abandoned careers to settle in Miami, opening a small nightclub where she continued to perform. After the restaurant lost its lease, they got a concession to operate a hotel lounge. In 1953 Don was diagnosed with lung cancer and lost their concession. After an attempt to start another nightclub failed, Sherwood began to seriously pursue her career.

For several years she met with little success. It was not until 1956, with her husband dying from cancer and a family to feed, that Miss Sherwood's career took off. A trip to Las Vegas, where she stayed with family friend Gene Austin, failed to advance her career. Initially passed over as too old to perform, she sang in third-rate bars around Miami, until she landed an engagement at Murray Franklin’s off-beat Miami Beach nightclub. Her pay: $150 per week.

Murray Franklin with Roberta

Soon, people packed the bar to hear the woman with the glasses who banged on a battered cymbal while she sang.. The comedian Red Buttons became a fan and brought columnist Walter Winchell to see her; he gave her rave reviews. Soon she was performing in clubs nationwide and had a contract with Decca Records. She was profiled in Life magazine in October. A November 1956 Billboard poll of DJs picked her as the 19th most popular "album artist" and #8 on a list of "Most Promising Female Vocalists".

Roberta with Arthur Godfrey

Soon Miss Sherwood was earning up to $5,000 a week at the nation's top nightclubs and was signed by Decca Records. She appeared at New York's Copacabana, made the rounds at the major clubs in Las Vegas and opened in Hollywood to an enthusiastic reception. Over the years, she appeared with such stars as Mickey Rooney, Don Rickles and Milton Berle. Sherwood was usually 
described as a torch singer; she appeared on stage in a sweater and glasses, and used a cymbal held in her hand for accompaniment. Time Life described her as "flashy, richly sentimental, as unsubtle as her crashing cymbal and as unpretentious as her $49.50 dress".

Roberta with Elvis

Miss Sherwood's repertory included such songs as ''You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry,'' ''Gee, But I Hate to Go Home Alone'' and ''Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing.'' She was modest about her art. ''I just sing loud,'' she said in an interview in 1956, ''and I've got a good ear. I pick up tunes easily. I must know a couple thousand songs, all kinds. All I do is step out there and belt out a mess of songs, no special material, no gimmicks. I just sing and shuffle around. Actually, my act is a bigger strain on my shoe leather than my voice.''

                             

Surprisingly her only charting hit was "Lazy River", which hit #57 on the Hot 100 in 1956 – but she continued to have a singing and recording career into the 1970s. Her recordings apparently did well in the jukeboxes, which explain why they continued to appear. She appeared four times on The Ed Sullivan Show and  
on many other variety shows of the late 1950s. She appeared on The Jackie Gleason Show, as a singer. She was interviewed by Edward R. Murrow on Person to Person.

Sherwood was an occasional actress, appearing in a 1957 TV movie about the early life of George M. Cohan entitled "Mr. Broadway," in which she co-starred with Mickey Rooney, James Dunn, Gloria DeHaven and June Havoc, sporadically in the 1960s.. She appeared once on Joey Bishop's sitcom and talk show. She also appeared with her sons on a memorable 1964 Lucy Show 

with Lucille Ball as well as The Donna Reed Show. She continued to headline nightclubs into the late 1970s and toured in a variety show with Cyd Charisse, Anna Maria Alberghetti, and others and as late as 1978 had a bit part in an episode of The Incredible Hulk playing "Mrs. Waverly" in an episode titled "Earthquakes Happen".

Her last known Miami appearance was in October 1980 at the Gusman Performing Arts Center’s “Noontime Lively Arts Series.” She received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Film Welfare League in 1985. She toured nationally with the Russ Morgan Orchestra through 1983 and performed in Los Angeles well into the early 1990s and recorded a final album, "The Tribute Collection", in 1992, produced by her son Don.

She spent her last years at her Sherman Oaks apartment in California where, surrounded by family and friends, died at age 86 on  July 5, 1999.  (Edited from Wikipedia & The NY Times)

Roberta Sherwood sings her great hits and is joined by sons Jerry, Don and Robert Lanning in this half-hour TV special from 1965.