People, Locations, Episodes

LaVern Baker, Singer born

LaVern Baker

On this date in 1929, LaVern Baker, a Black singer and entertainer, was born.

She was born Delores Williams in Chicago and began singing early. Like many of her peers before her, the natural power of her voice came from her gospel background.  Raised by her aunt, the famed Memphis Minnie, she also influenced young Delores.  In late 1946, as soon as she was old enough to go from singing for the Lord in the choir to singing for money in a liquor business, she got a job at the Club De Lisa.

She used two aliases depending on her audience. Billed as Little Miss Sharecropper, she performed in a custom-tattered patched-sack dress.  For the other clubs, she was Bea Baker, possibly derived from Memphis Minnie’s real name --Merline Baker.  In 1947, 17-year-old Williams moved with her family to Detroit, where she sang at the Flame Show Bar. In 1949, she was heard on record for the first time, singing with the Eddie Penigar Band on RCA-Victor.

1950, she recorded Sharecropper's Boogie for Columbia with Hot Lips Page and Red Saunders. Still, a year later, Columbia's Okeh released three singles by her, as Bea Baker, with Maurice King and His Wolverines.  In 1952, she replaced Kitty Stevenson as the vocalist with Todd Rhodes and His Orchestra, taking the name LaVern Baker. The acclaim she gained through her singing with Rhodes was so strong that she could tour Europe successfully on her own.  In 1953, upon her return, Baker set out to establish herself as a solo artist and recorded with Atlantic, which had been in business for barely five years.

Baker began recording, and from that first session came "Soul On Fire," penned by Atlantic's founder Ahmet Ertegun. Her first hit, "Tweedle Dee," rose in 1955 to become a Number Four R&B hit and a Top Twenty pop hit. It defined the sound of LaVern Baker's glory, never straying far from the source in the Baptist Church of her background. "See See Rider," in 1962, was Baker's last big hit.

Not long after that, she left Atlantic. The times had changed. But the truth remained: hers was one of the voices that first brought rock 'n' roll to glory. LaVern Baker died in 1997 due to complications of diabetes.

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