Born: 1 April 1895, United States
Died: 17 October 1984
Country most active: International
Also known as: NA
Alberta Hunter was an American jazz and blues singer and songwriter from the 1910s to the late 1950s, who returned to singing in her 80s after 20 years working as a nurse.
Hunter’s father left when she was a child, and her mother worked as a servant in a brothel in Memphis to support the family, marrying again in 1906. Hunter left for Chicago, around age 11, hoping to become a paid singer. Instead, she earned money by working at a boardinghouse that paid $6 a week as well as room and board. Her mother left Memphis and moved in with her soon afterwards.
Hunter began her singing career in a bordello and by 1914 she was receiving lessons from jazz pianist Tony Jackson, who helped expand her repertoire and compose her own songs. One of her early jobs was at the whites-only Panama Club, where her first act was in an upstairs room, far from the main event. She later said, “The crowd wouldn’t stay downstairs. They’d go upstairs to hear us sing the blues. That’s where I would stand and make up verses and sing as I go along.” Many believe her appeal was based on her gift for improvising lyrics to satisfy the audience. Hunter rose from some of the city’s lowest dives to a headlining job at its most prestigious venue for black entertainers, the Dreamland ballroom. She had a five-year association with the Dreamland, starting in 1917, and her salary rose to $35 a week.
She first toured Europe in 1917, performing in Paris and London, where audiences showed her respect and even reverence. Her career as a singer and songwriter flourished in the 1920s and 1930s, and she appeared in clubs and on stage in musicals in both New York and London. She wrote songs like the critically acclaimed “Downhearted Blues” (1922) and recorded prolifically during the 1920s, starting with sessions for Black Swan in 1921, Paramount in 1922–1924, Gennett in 1924, OKeh in 1925–1926, Victor in 1927 and Columbia in 1929, as well as Harmograph Records under the pseudonym May Alix. Hunter and pianist Lovie Austin wrote “Downhearted Blues” in 1922, and Hunter recorded the track for Ink Williams at Paramount Records, for $368 in royalties. Williams only put out 12 of Hunter’s records and secretly sold the recording rights to Columbia Records in a deal where he would receive all royalties. The new record, featuring Bessie Smith as vocalist, sold almost a million copies. Hunter learned what Williams had done and stopped recording for him, moving to Okeh Records.
In 1928, Hunter played Queenie opposite Paul Robeson in the London premiere of Show Boat at Drury Lane. She performed in nightclubs throughout Europe and appeared for the 1934 winter season with Jack Jackson’s society orchestra at the Dorchester, in London. While at the Dorchester, she made several HMV recordings with the orchestra and appeared in Radio Parade of 1935, the first British theatrical film to feature the short-lived Dufaycolor. Only Hunter’s segment was in color. She spent the late 1930s performing on both sides of the Atlantic, before settling back in the US in the early 1940s. She performed with Bricktop and recorded with Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet, including the 1924 hit “Cake Walking Babies (From Home).” She also headlined the USO’s first black show, taking a troupe to Casablanca and entertaining troops in both theatres throughout World War II and into the early postwar period, into the 1950s in Korea.
Her mother’s 1957 death prompted a radical career change. Hunter enrolled in nursing school and began on a career in health care, working for 20 years at Roosevelt Island’s Goldwater Memorial Hospital. When the hospital forced her to retire due to her age – they thought she was 70; she was actually 82 – she returned to singing and was a regular at a Greenwich Village club, The Cookery, until her death, in 1984. She was signed to Columbia Records, where she recorded The Glory of Alberta Hunter, Amtrak Blues (on which she sang the jazz classic “Darktown Strutters’ Ball” and which was honored by the Blues Hall of Fame in 2009), and Look For the Silver Lining. She had a walk-on role in Remember My Name, a 1978 film for which she was also commissioned to write and to perform the soundtrack music.
Hunter was a lesbian but kept her sexuality relatively private. In August 1927, she sailed for France, accompanied by Lottie Tyler, who she had had met in Chicago a few years earlier. Their relationship lasted until Tyler’s death, many years later. Hunter’s life was documented in the 1988 TV movie documentary Alberta Hunter: My Castle’s Rockin’ and in Cookin’ at the Cookery, a biographical musical by Marion J. Caffey, which toured the United States with Ernestine Jackson as Hunter. Her life and relationship with Tyler are depicted in the play Leaving the Blues by Jewelle Gomez, produced by the TOSOS theatre company in New York City in 2020.
Hunter was inducted to the Blues Hall of Fame in 2011 and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2015.