Howard Crockett born 25 December 1925

Howard Crockett (December 25th, 1925 - 27 December 1994) was a little known singer and songwriter who is sadly ignored by practically every country music encyclopedia. 

Howard Crockett was born Howard Elton Hausey on Christmas Day in the tiny north Louisiana settlement of Yellow Pine, a few miles from Minden. His parents made their living as farmers and sharecroppers. Besides Howard, the Hauseys had a daughter, Irene. Howard became a good baseball prospect, and was discovered by Larry Hunter who owned a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Minden and ran a baseball team. When Howard was twelve, Hunter hired an ex-professional baseball player to teach and train him. By 1942, when Howard was seventeen, talent scouts were coming to see him play, among them one from the Brooklyn Dodgers. Howard wound up playing for the Dodgers organization as a pitcher until a shoulder injury forced him out. 

Johnny Horton

After a short stint with the U.S. Navy, Hausey turned to music and began writing songs. In late 1955, he went to the Louisiana Hayride with three songs he had penned. Two of them were ballads, which he sang for Johnny Horton, but Johnny was looking for something uptempo. Howard then came up with "Honky Tonk Man", his third composition. Horton liked it and so did his manager, Tillman Franks. 

However, to get the song recorded, Howard had to give one third of the publishing to Horton and another third to Franks (who claims that he earned his share by refashioning the melody). "Honky Tonk Man" became Horton's first hit and on the strength of this, Howard moved to Texas (Fort Worth). During the next Horton session (May 23, 1956), they recorded another composition by Howard Hausey, "Sugar Coated Baby", but this wasn't released until 1963, when Johnny Horton was already three years in his grave. 

Howard also tried to land his own recording contract as a singer. In 1957, he was signed to Dot Records by Mac Wiseman, who encouraged the singer to adopt Crockett as a surname. At the first session, four tracks were recorded in Nashville, with the city's finest session men (Chet Atkins, Grady Martin, Bob Moore, Floyd Cramer, Buddy Harman, the Jordanaires). "You've Got Me Lying" and "If You'll Let Me" were issued on Dot 15593 in June 1957. 

Howard named his band the Night Riders and they played regularly on the Louisiana Hayride in 1958-59. He continued to supply Johnny Horton with songs: "Counterfeit Love", "All Grown Up", "Whispering Pines" and "Ole Slew Foot". This last song was first recorded by Crockett himself, as "Slewfoot the Bear". Again, Horton wanted half of the composer credit, waving a large cheque under Howard's nose (Horton had money to burn after the giant success of "Battle Of New Orleans"), but this time Crockett didn't budge. 

                                  

Meanwhile, Howard's recording career continued, though it was far from successful. Dot had dropped him after those first two singles and after that there were releases on Solar, Hamilton, Dixie and Manco. All small labels, but in 1961 he was signed to Smash Records, a subsidiary of Mercury, where his records were produced by Shelby Singleton and accompanied by Jerry Kennedy (guitar), Buddy Killen (bass), Ray Stevens (piano) and Buddy Harman (drums). Of the three Smash singles, the first two are certainly worthwhile: "Deep Elm Dave" and "Break Away Billy Boy". Crockett then moved to Motown's country subsidiary, Mel-O-Dy, where he released sides that emphasized his vocal similarities to Johnny Cash, but these too did not garner much attention. 

Crockett had to wait until 1973 for his one and only hit, "Last Will And Testimony (Of A Drinking Man)" which peaked at # 52 on the Billboard country charts and at # 45 in Cash Box. This was his comeback single after five years of retirement. He had been labelled as too close to Johnny Horton or Johnny Cash and after all those years, he had began to believe it himself. This hit encouraged him to try again, but his fortunes were short-lived and he distilled much of his bitterness into a song called "Don't Go To Nashville In the Summer, Songwriter, Or You'll Freeze To Death And Won't Know Why". 

Crockett retired from singing in 1981, though he continued to write songs. In 1986, Dwight Yoakam had a # 3 country hit with a remake of "Honky Tonk Man". After the death of his wife Patricia in 1989, Howard once again became active as a songwriter, until he died on the 27th December 1994, two days after his 69th birthday after a long struggle against cancer. In 1999, he was inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall Of Fame. "Crock", as he was called by his friends, was a prolific songwriter, with 343 titles in the BMI database. 

(Edited from This Is My Story, Bear Family notes & AllMusic)

Jabbo Smith born 24 December 1908

Jabbo Smith (December 24, 1908 – January 16, 1991) was an American jazz musician, known for his virtuoso playing on the trumpet. He  had  a short but exceedingly important recording career in the late 1920’s when he became the first trumpeter to seriously challenge Louis Armstrong with a virtuosity which was years ahead of its time. His work had a direct influence on Roy Eldridge, a pivotal figure in the development of Modern Jazz. He accomplished virtually all of his most significant work by the time he turned 21, yet lived to be 82. 

Smith was born Cladys Smith in Pembroke, Georgia on Christmas Eve in 1908, the son of a barber and church organist. After the death of his father when Jabbo was very young he moved , at age four, to Savannah. His mother found it increasingly difficult to care for him and at age six Jabbo was placed into the Jenkins Orphanage Home in Charleston, South Carolina,. It was here that he learned trumpet and trombone and by the age of 10 was touring with the Jenkins Band. After unsuccessfully attempting to leave the institution a number of times, Jabbo finally left for good at the age of sixteen and headed north to make his mark on music. He made a promise to his mother never to work for less than one hundred dollars a week, a good wage in those days. 

He began playing in bands in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Atlantic City, New Jersey, before making his base in Manhattan, New York City. During 1925-1928 he was with Charlie Johnson's Paradise Ten, a top New York jazz group that made some classic recordings. Smith was on a recording session with Duke Ellington in 1927 resulting in a memorable version of "Black and Tan Fantasy. Jabbo turned down an opportunity to join the Ellington Orchestra  because he was offered only $65 per week. We can only lament the loss of the marvelous music that this collaboration would have produced! 

From February to May, 1928, Smith joined the pit band of the Broadway show Keep Shufflin’, playing with Fats Waller (organ), James P. Johnson (piano), and Garvin Bushnell (alto). He recorded four sides with this group under the name of the Louisiana Sugar Babes. Jabbo was stranded in Chicago in 1929 while on the road with Keep Shufflin’ following the gangland killing of Arnold Rothstein, the financier of the show and also known as the infamous fixer of the 1919 Chicago “Black Sox” World Series. By this time Jabbo was a seasoned creative Jazz musician and Chicago had plenty of work. 

                                  

At the request of Mayo Williams of the Brunswick Record Company of Chicago he formed his Rhythm Aces, a quintet with which he recorded nineteen sides from January to August 1929. In these works Jabbo displays extraordinary virtuosity and exemplary musicianship on trumpet as well as vocal. Possibly, because the work was too advanced or sophisticated, the records were not accepted by the public and have, until recently, been largely forgotten. Of much more importance however, was the fact the these records attracted the attention of Roy Eldridge, who adopted some of Jabbo’s technically explosive, chance-taking speed in the high register and explorative style into his own playing. 

But, although Jabbo Smith at the time was considered a close competitor of Louis Armstrong, he had hit his peak. His unreliability, excessive drinking, and unprofessional attitude resulted in lost jobs, missed opportunities, and a steep decline. In March 1935, in Chicago, Smith was featured in a recording session produced by Helen Oakley under the name of Charles LaVere & His Chicagoans. After playing with one of Claude Hopkins' lesser orchestras during 1936-1938, Smith settled in Milwaukee and became a part-time player. This became his main base for many years, alternating with returns to New York. In Milwaukee he collaborated with saxophonist Bill Johnson. Subsequently, Smith dropped out of the public eye, playing music part-time in Milwaukee with a regular job at an automobile hire company.

Finally, around 1960, Jabbo was rediscovered. He subsequently recorded two albums (his style a mere shadow of his former heights) and in 1979 was a guest artist in the musical One Mo’ Time which opened to rave reviews. He also made appearances at several Jazz festivals, toured Europe and performed at the West End Cafe, the Bottom Line and the Village Vanguard, all in New York. One of his last public performances was in Berlin in 1986 where he greatly impressed Don Cherry, the avant-garde trumpeter. 

During May of 1990 Jabbo suffered a stroke and was living in the Village Nursing Home in New York. In October that year he was nominated and soon accepted into the Coastal Jazz Hall of Fame on the basis of his importance in Jazz History. On January 16, 1991, Jabbo Smith died in New York City, at the age of 82. 

(Edited from Syncopated Times, Wikipedia & AllMusic)

Chet Baker born 23 December 1929

Chet Baker  (December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist. He is known for major innovations in cool jazz that led him to be nicknamed the "Prince of Cool". Heralded as the “most gifted trumpeter” by saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, Baker was a melodic improviser with both his horn and his voice. 

The trumpeter was born Chesney Henry Baker Jr. in Yale, Oklahoma, and raised in a musical household.  His father, Chesney Baker Sr., was a professional Western swing guitarist, and his mother, Vera Moser, was a pianist who worked in a perfume factory. His family moved to California in 1940. Baker began his musical career singing in a church choir. 

His father, a fan of Jack Teagarden, gave him a trombone, before switching to the trumpet at the age of 13. He was drafted in 1946 and joined the 298th Army Band. He started sitting in at San Francisco be-bop jam sessions in 1950, while he was a member of the Presidio Army Band. Chet’s big break came in 1952 when he moved to Los Angeles and won the highly coveted spot as Charlie Parker’s trumpeter after an audition. He was just 22.

Soon thereafter, he met Gerry Mulligan. Along with the other members of their quartet, they pioneered a style of music which critics called West Coast Jazz. The genre’s light rhythms contrasted the hard and heavy drives of its eastern counterpart, making it a musical innovation. The period of 1953-1960 was the pinnacle of Baker’s popularity. 

With a following drawn by his Miles Davis-like style and by his resemblance to James Dean, Mr. Baker won jazz polls in Metronome and Down Beat magazines, and started his own group in 1953. In 1954, after he released an album called ''Chet Baker Sings and Plays,'' he emerged as the No. 4 male vocalist in Down Beat's poll. ''I don't know whether I'm a trumpet player who sings or a singer who plays the trumpet,'' he told an interviewer. 

Chet Baker with Miles Davis

Baker earned much attention and critical praise through the 1950s, particularly for albums featuring his vocals. Jazz historian Dave Gelly described the promise of Baker's early career as "James Dean, Sinatra, and Bix, rolled into one." In 1955, he made an eight-month European tour, the longest for an American jazz musician up to that date and was invited to tour with jazz luminaries such as Count Basie and Sarah Vaughan. 

                                  

He also was offered roles in domestic and international films, as producers favored his model good looks and irrefutable magnetism which they believed translated well on the big screen. Baker starred in two films (“Hell’s Horizon” in 1955 and “Howlers of the Dock” in 1960) and performed the music for a third (“Fiasco in Milan,”1959). 

But in the late 1950's, heroin addiction began to take its toll on his career. He was arrested repeatedly through the late 1950's and 1960's on narcotics-related charges, both in the United States and in Europe; in the early 1960's he was jailed for 16 months in Italy, and he was deported by Great Britain, Switzerland and Germany. Through most of the 1960's, his recordings were disappointing as his addiction continued. 

In 1968, he had his teeth knocked out by a disgruntled drug dealer. After the beating, which left him near death, he stopped performing for two years while recovering and turned to methadone. When he began performing again in the 1970's, critics praised his firmer tone and more aggressive solos, and he toured through the 1970's and 1980's. While abroad in 1979, Baker made 11 records and in the following year he recorded 10 for various American and European labels. These were some of the most prolific years of Baker’s life since the ’50s. 

When he did make the rare stateside appearance, it was usually to visit friends and relatives or to perform an irresistible gig, as he did in 1983 when Elvis Costello compensated him generously for a solo in his song “Shipbuilding.” A six month royalty statement during 1987 documented that he worked in nine countries during that time span alone.  Another enticing opportunity was appearing in a documentary about his life. “Let’s Get Lost” was directed by renowned fashion photographer Bruce Weber and chronicled Baker’s life from his time as a ’50s heartthrob to his nomadic existence in the ’80s. It was released four our months after his death. 

Early on May 13, 1988, Baker was found dead on the street below his room in Hotel Prins Hendrik, Amsterdam, with serious wounds to his head, apparently having fallen from the second-story window. Heroin and cocaine were found in his room and in his body. No evidence of a struggle was found, and the death was ruled an accident. According to another account, he inadvertently locked himself out of his room and fell while attempting to cross from the balcony of the vacant room adjacent to his own. A plaque was placed outside the hotel in his memory. 

At the time of his death, Mr. Baker was making several scheduled appearances in the Netherlands as part of a tour that also included West Berlin and France.  

(Edited from New York Times, Library of Congress Blogs, Washington Post & Wikipedia)

 

Joe Lee Wilson born 22 December 1935

Joe Lee Wilson (December 22, 1935 – July 17, 2011) was an American jazz singer from Bristow, Oklahoma, whose reputation never matched those of such male stars as Jon Hendricks, Mark Murphy or Kurt Elling – yet his eloquent baritone voice invited him into their league, even if an easygoing nature and an inclination to sidestep the mainstream diverted him. 

Part African American and part Creek Native American, Wilson was born to farming parents near Bristow in Oklahoma. Early in life, he found he had almost instant recall of any song he heard once, and from discovering jazz through radio broadcasts by the jump-band star Louis Jordan, he moved on to Nat King Cole and Dinah Washington. When he was 15, he left the farm for the Los Angeles High School, where he majored in music and sang in an a cappella choir. 

Walking with his aunt on an LA street, the teenager heard a voice drifting from a club, singing the bebop anthem Parker's Mood. The singer was Eddie Jefferson, a pioneer of the vocalese style in which lyrics were written to famous improvised jazz solos – but when Wilson asked what the sound was, his aunt said it was "the devil's music". Wilson and Jefferson were soon friends, and the former would later observe that Jefferson's approach continued an African tradition of local history and experience expressed through poetry and song. 

Wilson briefly studied classical singing, then jazz, at Los Angeles City College, and began to work the Santa Monica club scene – his first professional gigs being with Fletcher Henderson's alto saxist Roscoe Weathers, who told him: "As a musician sometimes you're gonna starve. You gotta learn to make your own work." The advice was to leave a lasting impression. 

Wilson met the jazz diva Sarah Vaughan on the west coast, and heard most of the best bands in the country in California in 1958-59, including Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and the Miles Davis band that made Kind of Blue. From 1959, he worked in Mexico, and was spotted there in 1960 by the singer Ernestine Anderson, who advised him to contact her New York booking agent. Wilson was reluctant to move at first, but he quickly realised that jazz's cutting-edge was being honed in NYC. Wilson met Shepp, the writer LeRoi Jones (subsequently Amiri Baraka), and Murray. They liked the newcomer's sound and his appreciation that jazz was in transition, and both Shepp and Murray invited him to sing their music. 

                                  

In 1968, Wilson tied with Sly and the Family Stone for first prize on NBC's show Talent Search, and won a record deal with Columbia, but the company never released his albums. In the 1970s, he rented a building on Bond Street, close to the famous Rivbea loft run by the saxophonist Sam Rivers and his wife Bea, and built the 100-capacity music room he called the Ladies' Fort. Wilson understood the value of promotion, and encouraged other local lofts to join a loft association and run a regular music festival.

Some of Wilson's best known recordings were with Shepp, with whom he collaborated on landmark albums such as Things Have Got to Change (1971) and Attica Blues the following year. Livin' High Off Nickels and Dimes was a 1972 recording of a live radio show from Columbia University, and three years later, Wilson had a radio hit on New York stations with his rousing account of Jazz Ain't Nothing But Soul. 

In 1977, he married his English partner Jill Christopher and moved to Europe. While based in Paris, Tokyo, and the United Kingdom (for a time living in the London flat of Val Wilmer, before settling in Brighton, Sussex), he periodically worked with the pianists Bobby Few and Billy Gault, and in recent years had toured the UK with local musicians, partnered by the formidable American pianist Kirk Lightsey. Wilson made the Candid Records album Feelin' Good during this period (its highlight was an unrehearsed duet with Lightsey on the poignant ballad There's No You) and a fine 2004 album with Italian musicians entitled Ballads for Trane – the intertwining of his voice with the tenor saxophonist Gianni Basso recalled the partnership of Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane in the 1960s. 

In 2010, despite having undergone heart surgery, Wilson was inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame in November 2010, where he gave his last public performance and dedicated a song he performed there to Barack Obama. He died of congestive heart failure at his Brighton home in the UK on July 17, 2011 aged 75. 

(Edited from Guardian obit by John Fordham & Wikipedia)

Champ Butler born 21 December 1926

Champ Clark Butler (December 21, 1926 – March 8, 1992) was an American popular music singer who had several Billboard singles chart hits in the 1950s, and recorded primarily for Columbia Records. 

Champ Clark Butler was born in St. Louis, Missouri,to Allen Monroe Butler and Pauline Acuff, but brought to California at a young age. An only child, he was named after his father's close friend, Champ Clark, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives. By 1930, the family lived in Glendale, Los Angeles. Butler's parents later divorced, and by 1940, he was living with his mother, a former opera singer, in Los Angeles. 

Butler attended Rosewood Grammar School, John Burroughs Junior High, Beverly Hills High School and Belmont High School. After three years of high school, he worked for barn bosses in the maintenance of stables and their horses. Following his 18th birthday in December 1944, Butler registered for the World War II draft in Beverly Hills. He enlisted for military service in the US Army in March 1945, and was in the paratroops for two years. He was discharged from the army in December 1946. 

From a young age, Butler wanted to be a singer and formed a trio with two girls, The Holidays, and for a brief period, he worked as a comedy duo with a dancer. He took a job at the parking lot of the Mocambo nightclub in West Hollywood and parked cars for patrons such as Ava Gardner and Lana Turner. He made the rounds of radio studios during the day and sang where ever he could around town in the evenings. Agent Barbara Belle heard about Butler, and visited the parking lot, where, whilst leaning against Clark Gable's Jaguar car, he sang a few bars. This resulted in Belle signing Butler in July 1950, and he left the parking lot job. 

An audition for Columbia Records led to a "rave wire" from Ben Selvin, the company's West Coast Artists and Repertoire director, going to Columbia's head of A&R Mitch Miller. Belle took him under her wing and sharpened up his act. Butler was introduced to Miller, who signed him to the label. 

Eight months later, Butler was recommended to take ailing Fran Warren’s place at the Mocambo. He opened at the club in June 1951, which had a large banner outside saying 'Our Own Champ Butler'. Stars in the audience for his opening night, included Barbara Stanwyck, Gertrude Niesen, Frankie Laine, José Ferrer and Lex Barker. It was said that "the applause and cheers brought down the house." 

                                  

From 1950 Butler recorded primarily for Columbia Records. The label's head of A & R, Mitch Miller, writing about Butler's singing in 1953, described him as "one of the most versatile lads in the business." Butler had six gold records, with his singles "Them There Eyes", "Down Yonder", "Oh, Looka There, Ain't She Pretty", "Be Anything (But Be Mine)", "Fit as a Fiddle" and "I Apologize". He also featured in a nightly CBS television show, Musical Nightcap, for over two years. After making over forty recordings for Columbia, Butler began recoding for other labels from 1955 starting with Coral, then Dot, Zephyr, Keen, Viscount, RRE and Five-Ten. 

Champ in  a 1951 publicity shot

In April 1958, Butler filed for bankruptcy. He told a hearing that his earnings had fallen from $40,000 to $50,000 in 1953 and 1954 to between $4,000 and $5,000 in 1957. "I really lived it up," he told the Bankruptcy Referee. "You can't continue to live as high when the money is not coming in as you did when it was. I've discovered that." He claimed that his assets consisted of a bongo drum and $48 in a bank account. Butler's debts at the time totalled $18,000. But by the early 1960s, Butler owned a San Francisco nightclub, Opus One. He also recorded an album, Heartaches By the Dozen, for Gillette, which was issued in 1963. 

Butler moved into real estate in northern California. In 1981, it was reported that he had resumed performing, and was singing in small clubs in San Fernando Valley and Palm Springs. His career took a different path in May 1983, with his appointment as public relations director and spokesman for Circle of Health Inc., a clinic which specialized in natural treatments without drugs. He also worked as general sales manager for the Sky Meadows Ranch in Cle Elum, Washington, where he lived. 

He struggled with alcohol addiction for 25 years, before committing to the Alcoholics Anonymous program. "I had it all. All the things success brings–name up in lights, fans, money, expensive clothes, cars, house with a swimming pool, kidney-shaped, of course–'n' I blew it. Blew it all on a bottomless bottle of booze," he later commented. 

Champ Butler died of natural causes at his home in Sky Meadows in Upper Kittitas County, Washington State on March 8, 1992, aged 65.

(Edited from Wikipedia & Valley Times)

Judy Henske born 20 December 1936

Judith Anne Henske (December 20, 1936 – April 27, 2022) was an American singer and songwriter, dubbed "the Queen of the Beatniks" by producer Jack Nitzsche. Her 1963 recording of "High Flying Bird" was influential on folk-rock, and her 1969 album Farewell Aldebaran, with husband Jerry Yester, was an eclectic "fusion of folk music, psychedelia, and arty pop". 

Henske was born in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. She attended Notre Dame Grade School and Notre Dame-McDonell Memorial High School, and then Rosary College, River Forest, Illinois, before studying at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She then worked in Ohio, before moving to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she worked as a cook in a Quaker co-operative. 

Around 1959, she relocated to San Diego, California, where she lived on a sloop in the yacht basin. Over 6 feet tall, with a "booming voice", her style was influenced by Sophie Tucker, Peggy Lee, and Odetta. A guest shot on ABC-TV's Hootenanny gave her young career a boost, after which she began singing in coffee houses in Pacific Beach, San Diego, and Los Angeles, where she worked with, among others, Lenny Bruce. She then moved on to Oklahoma City, before joining ex-Kingston Trio member Dave Guard and the Whiskeyhill Singers in 1961 in Menlo Park, California, recording an album. 

Whiskeyhill Singers

After the Whiskeyhill Singers disbanded, she returned to Hollywood. Henske appeared as a performer in the 1963 exploitation movie Hootenanny Hoot at the height of the folk-music craze and performed memorable versions of "The Ballad of Little Romy" and "Wade in the Water". She also performed "God Bless the Child" on an early episode of The Judy Garland Show, and was offered a regular role on the show but turned it down. 

Through her manager, Herb Cohen, she gained the attention of Jac Holzman and Elektra Records, for whom she made two solo albums. The first of these, a recording of a nightclub performance, highlighted the offbeat humor in her live performances with musical arrangements by Onzy Matthews; the second featured Billy Edd Wheeler's song "High Flying Bird", a minor hit in 1963 that was later covered by many bands of the era, including Jefferson Airplane.During this time, she worked extensively in New York as a solo singer, and shared the stage with Woody Allen, among others. Her relationship with Allen is said to have informed the script of Annie Hall, which includes a character from Chippewa Falls similar to Henske. 

                                   

Henske married musician Jerry Yester in 1963, and continued to work, appearing in Anita Loos' musical "Gogo Loves You" in Greenwich Village in 1964 at the Theatre de Lys, in which her performance was praised as "utterly delightful," as well as singing at many New York and East Coast clubs. Henske said: "I liked when people were engaged, and they show it with laughter and not just clapping. It didn't sound like people just sitting lifeless in their seats, admiring you. It was alive." Henske was noted by music writers for her strong, bluesy voice and emotive performances. 

She returned to the East Coast when Yester joined The Lovin' Spoonful. After a failed attempt in the mid-60s by Mercury Records to present her as an all-round entertainer, she and Yester moved back to Laurel Canyon. She recorded another live album, The Death Defying Judy Henske, and several singles arranged and produced by Jack Nitzsche, including a version of Fred Neil's "The Dolphins" (as "Dolphins in the Sea"). 

Rosebud

In 1969, she returned to music with Yester, making the baroque/psychedelic folk album Farewell Aldebaran for Frank Zappa’s Straight Records. The pair then formed a band, Rosebud, making another album before they separated. They divorced in 1971 and Henske married musician Craig Doerge in 1973. Together Henske and Doerge wrote "Yellow Beach Umbrella," the lead single from Doerge's debut LP. 

After a longer period of retirement from public appearances, she returned to performing in Los Angeles clubs in the 1990s, as well as writing articles for the San Diego Reader and other journals. She released two further albums, Loose In the World (1999) and She Sang California (2004). In February 2007, Rhino Records issued a limited edition 2-CD compilation set of her recordings, Big Judy: How Far This Music Goes (1962–2004), covering her entire career. 

Henske and Doerge lived in Pasadena, California, where they wrote and recorded. She died on April 27, 2022, at the age of 85, in hospice care at a Los Angeles area facility after a long illness.

(Edited from Wikipedia)