Hadda Brooks

All Music Guide:

In the mid- to late '40s, black popular music began to mutate from swing jazz and boogie-woogie into the sort of rhythm & blues that helped lay the foundation for rock & roll. Singer and pianist Hadda Brooks was one of the many figures who was significant in aiding that transition, although she's largely forgotten today. While her torch song delivery was rooted in the big band era, her boogie-woogie piano looked forward to jump blues and R&B. Ironically, the same qualities that made her briefly successful -- her elegant vocals and jazzy arrangements -- left her ill-equipped to compete when harder-driving forms of rhythm & blues, and then early rock & roll, began to dominate the marketplace in the early '50s.

Brooks got a recording deal through a chance meeting with jukebox operator Jules Bihari, who was looking to record some boogie-woogie. The Los Angeles-based Bihari, along with his brother Joe, would become major players in early R&B via their Modern label, which issued sides by B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Etta James, Jesse Belvin, and other stars. Brooks actually preferred ballads to boogie-woogies, but worked up her style by listening to Pete Johnson, Albert Ammons, and Meade Lux Lewis records. Her first record, the pounding "Swingin' the Boogie," was a sizable regional hit in 1945. Joe Bihari would later tell author Arnold Shaw that the single was instrumental in establishing the Biharis' in the record business.

Brooks' first records were instrumental, but by 1946 she was singing as well. She had a fair amount of success for Modern in the late '40s, reaching the R&B Top Ten with "Out of the Blue" and her most famous song, "That's My Desire" (which was covered for a big pop hit by Frankie Laine). Her success on record led to some roles in films, most notably in a scene from In a Lonely Place, which starred Humphrey Bogart.

Brooks briefly left Modern for an unsuccessful stint with major label London in 1950. After a similarly unrewarding return to Modern in the early '50s, and a brief stay at Okeh, she largely withdrew from recording into the nightclub circuit. For most of the 1960s, in fact, she was based in Australia, where she hosted her own TV show. Her profile was boosted in the mid-'90s by her induction into the Rhythm & Blues Foundation Hall of Fame, and by the inclusion of her recording of "Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere" in the film The Crossing Guard. A new album on Pointblank, Time Was When, was released in early 1996.

Wikipedia:

Hadda Brooks (October 29, 1916 – November 21, 2002), was an American pianist, vocalist and composer. Her first single, "Swingin' the Boogie", which she composed, was issued in 1945. She was billed as "Queen of the Boogie." Highlights of her life included singing at Hawaii's official statehood ceremony in 1959 and being asked for a private audience with Pope Pius XII.

Life and career

She was born Hadda Hapgood on October 29, 1916 and raised in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles, by her parents, who had migrated to California from the South. Her mother, Goldie Wright, was a doctor and her father, John Hapgood, a deputy sheriff. Her grandfather, Samuel Alexander Hopgood (October 22, 1857 – November 30, 1944), moved to California from Atlanta, Georgia, and proved to be an enormous influence on Brooks. He introduced her to theater and the operatic voices of Amelita Galli-Curci and Enrico Caruso. In her youth she formally studied classical music with an Italian piano instructor, Florence Bruni, with whom she trained for twenty years. She attended the University of Chicago, and later, returned to Los Angeles. She came to love the subtle comedy of black theater and vaudeville entertainer and singer Bert Williams. Brooks began playing piano professionally in the early 1940s at a tap-dance studio owned by Hollywood choreographer and dancer Willie Covan. For ten dollars a week, she played the popular tunes of the day while Covan worked with such stars as Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and Shirley Temple. Brooks was married briefly during this period to a Harlem Globetrotter named Earl "Shug" Morrison in 1941. She toured with the team when they traveled. Morrison developed pulmonary pneumonia, however, and died about a year after they were married. It was Brooks' only marriage.

Brooks actually preferred ballads to boogie-woogie, but worked up her style by listening to Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson, and Meade Lux Lewis records. Her first recording, the pounding "Swingin' the Boogie," for Jules Bihari's Modern Records, was a sizable regional hit in 1945, and another R&B Top Ten with "Out of the Blue," her most famous song. It was Jules Bihari who gave her the recording name Hadda Brooks. Clarinetist and bandleader Benny Goodman recommended Brooks to a film director friend of his who placed her in the film Out of the Blue in 1947. Encouraged by orchestra leader Charlie Barnet, Brooks practiced singing "You Won't Let Me Go," and the song became her first vocal recording in 1947. She usually played the small part of a lounge piano player in films, and often sang the title song. "Out of the Blue" became a top hit for Brooks, "Boogie Woogie Blues" followed in 1948, and she appeared in In a Lonely Place (1950) starring Humphrey Bogart, and in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) with Lana Turner and Kirk Douglas. Brooks became the first African-American woman to host her own television show in 1957. The Hadda Brooks Show, a combination talk and musical entertainment show, aired on Los Angeles' KCOP-TV. The show opened with Brooks seated behind a grand piano, cigarette smoke curling about her, and featured "That's My Desire" as her theme song. She appeared in 26 half-hour episodes of the show, which were broadcast live in Los Angeles and repeated on KGO in San Francisco. She commuted to Europe in the 1970s for performances in nightclubs and festivals, but performed rarely in the United States, living for many years in Australia and Hawaii. In 1986, manager Alan Eichler brought her out of a 16-year retirement to open a new jazz room at the historic Perino's in Los Angeles, after which she continued to play nightclubs regularly in Hollywood, San Francisco, and New York, to rave reviews.

In 1993, Brooks was presented with the prestigious Pioneer Award by Bonnie Raitt on behalf of the Smithsonian-based Rhythm and Blues Foundation, in a ceremony held at the Hollywood Palace. Brooks returned to movies with a cameo in Jack Nicholson's film The Crossing Guard (1995), directed by Sean Penn, in which she sang "Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere." Three years later she made another singing appearance in The Thirteenth Floor (1999). Her last performance on screen was an acting role in "John John in the Sky" (2000)

She resumed her recording career with the 1994 album "Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere" for DRG. Meanwhile Virgin Records had acquired the old Modern catalogue and because of Brooks' new-found success issued a compilation of her 40's and 50's recordings entitled "That's My Desire". They also signed her to record three new songs for the Christmas album "Even Santa Gets the Blues," made more unusual by the fact she had releases on the same label made 50 years apart. Her 1996 album for Virgin, "Time Was When," featured Al Viola (Guitar), Eugene Wright (Bass) and Richard Dodd (Cello), and she wrote two of its songs: "You Go Your Way and I'll Go Crazy" and "Mama's Blues." She began playing at hip nightclubs like actor Johnny Depp's Viper Room, New York's Algonquin Hotel and Michael's Pub and such Hollywood haunts as Goldfinger's, the Vine St. Bar and Grill and the Hollywood Roosevelt Cinegrill. She celebrated her 80th birthday by performing two full shows at Depp's Viper Room.

In 2000, the Los Angeles Music Awards honored Hadda Brooks with the "Lifetime Achievement Award."

Hadda Brooks died at White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles, following open-heart surgery at age 86.

In 2007, a 72-minute documentary, Queen of the Boogie, directed by Austin Young & Barry Pett, was presented at the Los Angeles Silver Lake Film Festival.

Her most famous songs include: