Women in Jazz and Blues: Lou Ann Barton • International Sweethearts of Rhythm • Jerrie Thill

This month is officially Women’s History Month, or at least it used to be. I have chosen several women and/or bands that might be well-known to some, but mostly not to others. All of these musicians have made a big impact on me personally.

LOU ANN BARTON

Lou Ann Barton

Lou Ann Barton and Stevie Ray Vaughn in 1978. Photo by Ken Hoge.

Sue Palmer, Lou Ann Barton, Candye Kane, and Sue Foley.

Lou Ann Barton (born February 17, 1954) is an American singer, based in Austin, Texas, since the late ’70s, where she rose to fame while playing with famed guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughn in the band Double Trouble. After Stevie’s tragic death, she continued with various bands and eventually landed a recording contract under her own name. My favorite album of hers—and one that personified the Austin blues sound—was Read My Lips. The whole scene was created mainly at Antone’s Nightclub on 6^th St. in Austin. Clifford Antone was the founder of Antone’s and the Antone’s record label. I was fortunate to play there with San Diego’s late, great Candye Kane, who proceeded to get a record deal as well with the Antone’s label and went on to become a major national and international touring act after that. We met Lou Ann there and were lucky to get on an Antone’s European tour with Lou Ann and guitarist/singer Sue Foley. This was probably the most memorable of all the tours I went on with Candye Kane in the ’90s. Both the headliners and the backup band (Freddie Pharoah, Jon Penner, Johnny Moeller were characters ALL!)

Although Lou Ann doesn’t record or tour as much as she probably could, she remains active on the Texas club scene and occasionally tours with Stevie Ray Vaughn’s brother, Jimmie Vaughn, a wonderful singer and guitarist in his own right. She was recently inducted into the Clifford Antone Foundation Hall of Fame, as introduced by Sue Foley. Over the decades, she has worked with a virtual Who’s Who of blues men and women, including Marcia Ball, Angela Strehli, Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughn, Sue Foley, Roomful of Blues, Kim Wilson & the Fabulous Thunderbirds, W.C. Clark, and more. She is among the finest purveyors of raw, emotional roadhouse blues, jump blues, and vintage R&B that one is ever likely to encounter. When we were on tour together, I never missed one of her shows. Among my favorite albums is one she recorded with Marcia Ball and Angela Strehli, Dreams Come True.

Marcia told me that still is her best-selling album. In this video, they are accompanied by the Antone’s house band, including Sarah Brown on bass/vocals and Derek O’Brien on guitar. Derek is one of Lou Ann’s favorite accompanists, who also produced one of Candye Kane’s records, along with Dave Alvin, titled Diva La Grande.

Check out these other music clips!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HCs2KScQrs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI4B-aDfaWY

INTERNATIONAL SWEETHEARTS OF RHYTHM

The International Sweethearts of Rhythm

The International Sweethearts of Rhythm were considered the best and most exciting of the many all-woman big bands of the late ’30s and ’40s. They were first created by Lawrence Jones, founder of the Piney Woods Country Life School, in Mississippi, for mostly Afro-American girls and boys, but other minorities also. They were mostly funded by private contributions. Initially, the girls’ jazz band was comprised of 13-15 year olds and were used to help raise funds for the school. They began playing for local dances and parties. As their skills grew, they began touring the South and, eventually, the greater U.S. Some of the nightclubs included the Apollo Theatre, and later, during World War II, the USO tours in Europe. Piney Woods was a foster home for many of the girls, and, while they were touring, they mostly belonged to each other. The Sweethearts developed their own identity, and with it, a powerful dynamic. Their school and the outside world tended to separate boys and girls. Racial segregation was in full force. So, when white women did join the band, much later, they had to wear makeup to look darker. This constant annoyance brought them even closer. The group was united by one goal: to play the best swing music possible. They had good instructors, managers, arrangers, and chaperones until they broke away from the school and went out on their own. Black musicians, like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, and Erskine Hawkins accepted them. Ray Charles and Quincy Jones said they played better than men!! White male bands ignored them.

Some of the key players stayed with the band the whole time the Sweethearts were together 1937-1945. Some came later, as needed.

Helen Jones

Pauline Braddy

Roz Cron

HELEN JONES was the leading trombone soloist and adopted daughter of the Piney Woods founder, Lawrence Jones. She was with the band from its inception until they disbanded. “I think one of the things that made us so popular with everybody among the blacks: to see a bunch of black school girls, we had chaperones, and we had to be neat and clean; we had curfews, no drinking, and things like that.

VI BURNSIDE was the lead tenor sax player and considered the heart and soul of the band. People compared her to Lester Young, Count Basie’s sax player and favorite of Billy Holiday. She remained a professional musician after this band broke up, leading many groups of her own, comprised mostly of women.

TINY DAVIS played lead trumpet and sang and was considered the hottest female trumpet player at the time. After the Sweethearts disbanded, she organized the Hell Divers and played professionally until the 1980s.

PAULINE BRADDY was the high-powered drummer of the Sweethearts and totally anchored them rhythmically. She was solid and could be flashy, at times donning white gloves with neon sticks that glowed with the help of a black light. The Sweethearts had one of the hottest stage shows in the business at that time, particularly due to Pauline. She was compared to Gene Krupa and went on to play rock ‘n’ roll in the ’60s!!

ROZ KRON became the lead alto sax player when she joined the band in 1943. She was the first white woman to join and often had to wear dark makeup to pass. She considers the Sweethearts the highlight of her career. She had originally come from another women’s big band, the Ada Leonard Orchestra, which she said was a good band, with good players, but she wanted to swing harder. And she did!!!

Many players went through the International Sweethearts of Rhythm over the years, depending on various individual changes and band needs. Some of them include Johnnie Mae Rice/piano player, well-known guitarist/bass player Carline Ray, Willie Mae Wong (saxes), vocalist Evelyn McGee, leader and vocalist Annie Mae Winbur, and many more. They were definitely one of the hottest bands of the 1940s, male or female. They disbursed, along with many other big bands when the men came home from war; smaller bands became more popular and cheaper, and rock ‘n’ roll began its era.

JERRIE THILL (1917-2010)

Jerrie Thill

Jerrie Thill and the Band

Still playing at 90 years old!

While I am too young to have heard the Sweethearts personally, I did hear about another women’s band: the Ada Leonard and the All-American Girl Orchestra. My aunt, Arlene Turner, was a professional alto sax player, who idolized Duke Ellington’s alto player, Johnny Hodges. She had toured with Ada Leonard’s band. I grew up listening to all my aunts, my mother, and my grandfather play music in the living room. Eventually I joined them. Auntie Arlene talked about Ada Leonard, but I never knew much about the rest of her musical or personal life. She died in the early ’80s.

This all changed when I became friends with a very gifted sax player, Carol Chaikin. I asked her to do a few gigs with my band, the Motel Swing Orchestra. She thought my aunt might have known a good friend of hers. Her friend turned out to be Jerrie Thill, a professional drummer. Not only did Jerrie know my aunt, they had also been in several bands together, including Ada Leonard’s band as well as a quintet called the Biltmore Girls, in the ’40s and ’50s. Auntie Arlene’s glamorous significant other, Sallie Davis, was the lead singer and I considered her an aunt also. Jerrie had many stories to tell about them, and I could tell she knew them very well.

Born in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1917, Jerrie began making her living as a performing artist, singing, dancing, and playing her drums, in Chicago at the age of 18. She was the leader of an all-girl swing band that toured on the Pantages and Gus Sun Times circuits during the tail end of the vaudeville era, from the mid to late ’30s. Jerrie made her way to Hollywood and was offered her first job there by my aunt at notorious gangster Mickey Cohen’s Continental Club. Jerrie said they had to ask his permission if they wanted to leave the club!!! My aunts retired from the music business in the ’60s, but Jerrie continued until her death. After the Biltmore Girls disbursed, she hooked up with Peggy Gilbert and the Dixie Bells, a band comprised of 60-80-year-old women and played with them for 20 years. They made a number of guest appearances on television, including The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, The Golden Girls, Married with Children, and Trapper John.

When I first met Jerrie she was 90 years old. She died a couple years later but had fun stories and filled in the gaps that my family didn’t tell me and probably didn’t know. When I met her, she was still playing at the iconic El Cid Restaurant in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles. A year before she died, famed songwriter and art director Allee Willis produced a video on Jerrie. Carol Chaikin also plays sax in that. Jerrie had a long and industrious career, and I am happy to have caught up with her. She was a hipster her entire life and a delight.