Lil Green

Lil Green
Background information
Birth name Lillian Green or
Lillie May Johnson
Born (1919-12-22)December 22, 1919
Mississippi, United States
Died April 14, 1954(1954-04-14) (aged 34)
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Genres Blues
Occupation(s) Singer
Labels Bluebird
Atlantic (1951-54)
Associated acts Big Bill Broonzy

Lillian "Lil" Green (December 22, 1919 [nb 1] – April 14, 1954)[2] was an American blues singer and songwriter. She was among the leading female rhythm and blues singers of the 1940s, possessed with an ability to bring power to ordinary material and compose superior songs of her own.[7]

Life and career

Originally named Lillian Green, or Lillie May Johnson,[4] she was born in Mississippi. After the early deaths of her parents, she went to Chicago, Illinois, where she began performing in her teens and where she would make all of her recordings.[8]

Green was noted for superb timing and a distinctively sinuous voice. She was reportedly 18 when she recorded her first session for the 35 cent Bluebird subsidiary of RCA. In the 1930s she and Big Bill Broonzy had a night club act together.[2] Her two biggest hits were, firstly, her own composition "Romance in the Dark" (1940),[9] which was later covered by many artists, such as Dinah Washington and Nina Simone (in 1967), although Billie Holiday also recorded a different song with the same name. Then came Green's own (1941) version of Kansas Joe McCoy's minor key blues and jazz influenced song, "Why Don't You Do Right?",[9] which was covered by Peggy Lee in 1942 and many others since.[8] As well as performing in Chicago clubs, Green toured with Tiny Bradshaw and other bands, but never really broke away from the black theatre circuit.[10]

Although Green signed with Atlantic Records in 1951, she was already in poor health.[10] She died in Chicago in 1954 of pneumonia, and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Gary, Indiana.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Most sources give 1919 as her year of birth.[1][2][3] However, Eagle and LeBlanc give a date of 1901 based on 1910 census information, and also refer to a Social Security claim, apparently for her, which states her birth date as December 22, 1910, in Port Gibson, Mississippi.[4][5] Her 1954 death notice in Jet magazine reported her age at death as 40.[6]

References

  1. ↑ Gérard Herzhaft, Encyclopedia of the Blues, University of Arkansas Press, 1992, p.128
  2. 1 2 3 Barry Lee Pearson. "Lillian "Lil" Green | Biography". AllMusic. Retrieved 2015-08-30.
  3. ↑ Lil Green, All About Blues Music
  4. 1 2 Eagle, Bob; LeBlanc, Eric S. (2013). Blues - A Regional Experience. Santa Barbara: Praeger Publishers. p. 216. ISBN 978-0313344237.
  5. ↑ Bob Riesman, I Feel So Good: The Life and Times of Big Bill Broonzy, University of Chicago Press, 2011, p.283
  6. ↑ Jet, May 6, 1954, p.20
  7. ↑ Shadwick, Keith (2001). "Lil Green". Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Quintet Publishing, Inc. p. 461. ISBN 1-86155-385-4.
  8. 1 2 Russell, Tony (1997). The Blues - From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray. Dubai: Carlton Books Limited. pp. 114–115. ISBN 1-85868-255-X.
  9. 1 2 Russell, Tony (1997). The Blues: From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray. Dubai: Carlton Books Limited. p. 13. ISBN 1-85868-255-X.
  10. 1 2 "Lil Green Biography". OLDIES.com. Retrieved 2015-08-30.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/20/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.