HELEN WARD, BOB EBERLY, FRAN WARREN, and JOHNNY DESMOND in the Late ‘70S with SY OLIVER

Big Band Vocalists Revisited - Part 2 HELEN WARD, BOB EBERLY, FRAN WARREN, and JOHNNY DESMOND in the late ‘70s with SY OLIVER PEGGY LEE Born, as a 1972 Capitol album of hers acknowledged, Norma Deloris Eggstrom, Peggy created a polished, sophisticated persona as a singer and songwriter. Her first big break came when she was hired as Benny Goodman’s vocalist in 1941. She married Goodman’s guitarist, Dave Barbour, in 1943, so Benny fired Barbour and Peggy then quit. Perhaps all for the best, since during the next several decades, she got recording offers from Capitol and Decca, wrote songs, acted in films (“The Jazz Singer,” “Pete Kelly’s Blues”), and provided speaking and singing voices for several characters in Disney’s “Lady and the Tramp.” She experienced poor health and by the 1990s sometimes used a wheelchair to perform, or, as shown by the photo above, remained seated and stationary in a chair. Peggy Lee died from complications of diabetes and a heart attack on Jan. 21, 2002 at the age of 81. JACK LEONARD When he was with Tommy Dorsey from 1936 to 1939, Jack was a star! But, after he left the band and entered the military, his popularity declined. Not too many years later, he entered another side of show business. He served as Nat “King” Cole’s personal business manager for 15 years, and later worked in music publishing. In 1970, he was hired by Time-Life to recreate for their “Swing Era” series his vocal on the 1937 Tommy Dorsey version of Marie. A rare television appearance for PBS in 1983 allowed Jack to sing two touching songs, Once in a While and I Hadn’t Anyone Til You, along with his biggest Dorsey hit, Marie. He is pictured above during that show, with saxophonists Phil Bodner and Frank Wess. Jack Leonard died on June 17, 1988 at the age of 75 (even though the obits claimed he was 73). He was survived by his wife, Marilyn, and a daughter. MARY ANN McCALL Mary Ann worked in 1939 and 1940 with Woody Herman, Charlie Barnet, and Tommy Reynolds, and, later, in the early 1950s with Artie Shaw and Charlie Ventura. She worked in clubs and lounges, then retired from the music business in the 1960s. But in 1976 she was invited to participate in the 40th anniversary celebration of Woody Herman, held at Carnegie Hall in New York City, and sang Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams. Incidentally, she was briefly married in 1949 to one of the Herman herds’ tenor saxophonists, Al Cohn (1925-1988). Mary Ann McCall died on Dec. 14, 1994 at the age of 75. THE MOON MAIDS In 1946, Vaughn Monroe hired a female singing group to perform with his band. Because Monroe’s theme song, Racing with the Moon, was so strongly identified with him, they were given the name The Moon Maids. (Later, a male group would be added, called The Moon Men.) The Moon Maids included, at various times and in alphabetical order, Kathleen Carnes, Hilda “Tinker” Cunningham Rautenberg (that’s “Tinker” pictured above), June Hiatt Bratone, Dee Laws, Maree Lee, Betty McCormick, Katie Myatt, Mary Jo Thomas Grogan, Arlene Truax, Lois Wilber, and Ruth Wetmer. They stayed with Monroe until 1953. In the 1980s, Tinker joined with Mary Jo, June, and two new voices, Libba Anderson Weeks and Mary Jo’s husband Harold Grogan, to form “The Moonmaids Plus One.” In 2005, we got to meet Tinker when she attended an outing in Florida with The Vaughn Monroe Society (Claire, Herb, Jerry, and other nice folks). Tinker again joined Mary Jo and June to sing at a 2006 program in Florida, celebrating the 80th birthday of Monroe guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli (1926-2020). AUDREY MORRIS The music roots for Audrey were planted on the south side of Chicago, where she was born. Listening to the radio, her idols included Billie Holiday, Lee Wiley, Mildred Bailey, and Peggy Lee. During the mid-1950s, Audrey worked for Charlie Spivak’s and Claude Thornhill’s bands. But her lasting involvement - and fame - came as a cabaret and jazz singer and pianist, especially in Chicago, at places including Mister Kelly’s and the London House. Her last public performance was in 2017 at an Orchestra Hall tribute to pianist Oscar Peterson. Audrey Morris died Apr. 1, 2018 at the age of 89. ELLA MAE MORSE . Ella Mae got off to a great start with Jimmy Dorsey’s and Freddie Slack’s bands. In fact, her 1942 vocal of Cow-Cow Boogie, accompanied by Slack and his musicians, gave Capitol Records their first gold disc, and there were more hits by the combination, such as Mr. Five By Five and House of Blue Lights. From the late ‘40s into the ‘50s, she ventured off on her own and sang, swing, jazz, blues, r&b, even rock ’n’ roll - listen to “Barrelhouse, Boogie, And The Blues” with “Big Dave” Cavanaugh playing the tenor sax and leading the orchestra (a 10” Capitol H 513, expanded to the 12” Capitol T 513). After “The Morse Code” (Capitol T 898) in 1957, backed by a big band conducted by Billy May, she stopped recording. Under the new management of Alan Eichler, her career revived in the 1980s and she performed at smart venues like the Vine St. Bar and Grill in Hollywood and Michael’s Pub in New York, as well as with Ray McKinley at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Ella Mae Morse died of respiratory failure on Oct. 16, 1999 at the age of 75. HELEN O’CONNELL . Her fame with Jimmy Dorsey’s band from 1939 to 1943 lasted a lifetime. From 1956-58, she was seen on NBC’s “Today” show, and with Bob Barker she co-hosted the “Miss USA” and “Miss Universe” pageants from 1972 to 1980. She was able to retain her lovely appearance and her voice, too. After she belted out an especially swinging Tangerine at a 1990 “Society of Singers” gathering, Frank Sinatra could be seen gleefully remarking, “She’s still got her chops!” She is shown above in a 1992 portrait. Helen O’Connell died on Sept. 9, 1993 at the age of 73. She was survived by her husband, musician Frank De Vol, whom she wed in 1991, and three of her four daughters from a previous marriage. ANITA O’DAY . You might call her a jazz singer, but she preferred the term “song stylist.” Born Anita Belle Colton, it was she who, early on, changed her surname to “O’Day,” which was “Pig Latin” (slang) for “dough” (that is, money, which she hoped to make). She was the vocalist with Gene Krupa 1941-43, with Stan Kenton starting in 1944, and then back with Krupa 1945-46. But, freed from the typical dance band tempos, she excelled at improvising the rhythm and melody of jazz and bop songs. She recorded prolifically for the Norgran and Verve labels between 1952 and 1962, later consenting to do just two vocals for the Time-Life “Swing Era” series - stereo recreations of Boogie Blues and And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine. After a life-threatening accident in 1996 (she fell down the stairs of her home after a drinking binge, was admitted to the hospital with a broken arm, but ended up with severe food poisoning and pneumonia), most of the credit for Anita still being physically able to perform and make a living goes to her manager, Alan Eichler. Anita O’Day died of cardiac arrest on Nov. 23, 2006 at the age of 87. DOLORES PARKER She once sang with bands led by Duke Ellington, Earl Hines, Fletcher Henderson, and Benny Carter. But she retired from singing and acting in 1956 to be with her husband and daughter. She came out of retirement about 30 years later to dedicate a musical scholarship at Kent State University. She then went on to perform with such northeast Ohio ensembles as The Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, The Akron Symphony Orchestra, and The Kent State University Jazz Ensemble. After a long illness, Dolores Parker died on Dec. 17, 2018 at the age of 99. HARRY PRIME Harry’s days as a nationally-famous singer were in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s when he was with Randy Brooks and Tommy Dorsey and Jack Fina and Ralph Flanagan. But he still was singing and had fans more than 50 years later! For a while, changing tastes led him to move back to the Philadelphia area in 1954, where he worked as a disc jockey and radio host. But his love for singing won out, and from 2002 to 2011 he developed a small following whenever he sang at the Roasted Pepper in Chalfont, Pennsylvania, or the Epicure Café in East Falls, or even in the lobby of the Meridian condominium building in Warrington. Harry Prime died of natural causes on June 15, 2017 at the age of 97, survived by sons Kevin, Greg, Rick, John, and Harry and daughters Kim and Bethenia. ANDY RUSSELL Born Andres Rabago, he worked with the bands of Gus Arnheim and Alvino Rey. Andy specialized in romantic songs sung bilingually, in English and Spanish (although, as he explained to Chris once over the telephone, he was a drummer, too). His greatest fame in the U.S. was during the 1940s, but then he relocated to Mexico in 1954 and, touring extensively in Latin America, Spain, Portugal, and Cuba, he became a singing star of radio, television, movies, records, and nightclubs there, too. One of his last high-profile appearances was on a PBS-TV special, “G.I.

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