Remembering Actress Sheila Guyse July 14, 1925 - December 28, 2014

I first learned about Sheila Guyse maybe six years ago. A rainy day, hanging at home with my mother who was in her 80's at the time. I had bought her a laptop and my mother always the modern woman was "on the net" looking for some movies from her time. Finally she stumbled on some sort of archive site that had a lot of old "Race Movies" movies that were distributed specifically for negro audiences in the United States Of America. We saw Halleijuah starring Nina Mae Mckinney a couple of shorts that showed, Mamie Smith, some all girl band from the late 30s that I cant remember and then " Oh Boy What A Girl" a hilrious movie that starred Tim Moore who plays a male in a vaudevile troupe who gets duped into dressing up as a woman and becoming a rich lady who is going to invest in a Broadway show. What a movie Miss. Guyse played the daughter of one of the investors daughters in this screwball comedy that to me dispelled any myths that all race movies were inferior to the usual Hollywood fare I had been weened on. Miss Guyse was an Apollo Theater amateur contest winner and subsequently landed a small role on Broadway in the musical " Memphis Bound" then made the subsequent movies Oh Boy what a girl (1947) starring Time Moore, Sepia Cinderella which also co starred Tondayleo Levy!(1948) Broadway show "Finians Rainbow (1947) Lost in the stars (1948) Former husbands were Shelby Miler ( a tailor) and Kenneth Davis which lasted eight years. Mr Davis was a white man and she appered on the cover of pocket magazine "jet" with him in 1952 he was a ballet dancer and the cover of jet proclaimed ": Negro women with white husbands" she was very proud of this marriage and gave a supberb and intelligent intervie. I cant say it endered her to African American women at that time tho. Remmeber during this time LenaHornes husband was the white band leader Lennie Hayton, Pearl Bailey married the white drummer Louis Bellson, and Josephine Baker was married to a white parisian. Due to health complications ( she had surgery for bleeding ulcers) and a religious conversion to Jeahovahs Wittness she left show business but lived to the ripe age of 88. This is one blogger who will miss her. I always remember my mother explaining to me the importance of these "race" stars. These were the women little black girls had to look up to. They admired their hair, their make up, their clothes and most of all remember these actresses looked like them!

The following id from the New York Times: Sheila Guyse, a popular actress and singer who appeared on Broadway and in so-called race movies in the 1940s and ’50s, and who for a time, despite limited opportunities in the entertainment industry, appeared headed for broader fame, died on Dec. 28 in Honolulu. She was 88. The cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, her daughter Sheila Crystal Devin said. For several years, Ms. Guyse (rhymes with “nice”) was compared to stars like Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne and Ruby Dee, black actresses who broke through racial barriers. But by the late 1950s she was out of show business, a result of some combination of health problems, a religious conversion and family obligations. She left behind a handful of films. The best is probably “Sepia Cinderella” (1947), in which she played a girl-next-door who is initially overlooked by the musician she loves, played by the singer Billy Daniels. She also appeared in Broadway musicals and in nightclubs. Her only album, “This Is Sheila,” a collection of standards released by MGM Records in 1958, a decade after her heyday, was supposed to be a comeback. That November, Jet magazine put her on its cover. Photo Sheila Guyse “Sheila Guyse, a glamorous, high-octane performer under supper club spotlights,” the article said, “is a singer who has had to overcome serious illness, marriage failures, financial pressures and professional disappointments in her long campaign to create a career in show business.” The article quoted Ms. Guyse as saying, “I was discouraged and depressed for a while, but now life looks a lot better to me,” and mentioned a five-year recording contract. But the comeback never happened. Ms. Guyse, who had surgery for bleeding ulcers in the mid-1950s, continued to have health problems. Ms. Devin, her daughter, recalled once finding her collapsed in her bedroom, bleeding from the mouth. In addition, Ms. Guyse’s husband did not want her to have a career, Ms. Devin said. Ms. Guyse’s first two marriages had ended in divorce, and she was a struggling single mother when she met Joseph Jackson, a New York sanitation worker so enthralled by her that he would sometimes follow her in his garbage truck. After they married, in the late 1950s, Ms. Guyse stopped performing and became increasingly involved with a Jehovah’s Witness hall in Queens. “It wasn’t easy to be a glamorous movie star with people following you for your autograph and now you’re home making pancakes,” Ms. Devin said. “She did it, but I don’t think it was easy.” Etta Drucille Guyse was born on July 14, 1925, in Forest, Miss. She took Sheila as a stage name. She followed her father, Wilbert, to New York when she was a teenager and, her daughter said, lived for a time in a Harlem rooming house with Billie Holiday. After winning an amateur contest at the Apollo Theater, Ms. Guyse had a small role on Broadway in the musical “Memphis Bound!” and appeared in a series of all-black films, beginning with a small role in “Boy! What a Girl!” (1947), which starred the vaudeville performer Tim Moore. She moved on to starring roles in “Sepia Cinderella” and “Miracle in Harlem” (1948), in which she played a woman wrongly accused of murder. Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story Advertisement She also appeared in the Broadway musicals “Finian’s Rainbow” (1947) and “Lost in the Stars” (1949). In addition to Ms. Devin, who has worked as a model and actress under the name Sheila Anderson, Ms. Guyse is survived by another daughter, Deidre Devin, from her marriage to Mr. Jackson; two grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. A son, Michael Jackson, died a few years ago. Joseph Jackson died in 2012. Ms. Guyse moved back to Mississippi in the 1980s and to Hawaii about five years ago. Her first marriage, to Ms. Devin’s father, a tailor named Shelby Irving Miller, was very brief. Her second, to Kenneth Davis, whom she had met while both performed in “Finian’s Rainbow,” lasted eight years. Mr. Davis, who was white, became a dancer with American Ballet Theater. In 1952, a photograph of the couple appeared on a cover of Jet with the headline “Negro Women With White Husbands.”

“I don’t go about looking for difficulties,” Ms. Guyse said in the article. “It took me a long time to decide to marry Ken, but I’m glad I did. We’ve been very happy. Intelligence and understanding are needed to make a marriage like ours succeed. It takes more than love. You have to have a mind of your own and be able to ignore what the world is saying and thinking about you.”

A Hot Time In Old Town Tonight ( Pictures from Alabama University with video) and Lavwern Baker

THERE'LL BE A HOT TIME IN THE OLD TOWN TONIGHT
Theodore M Metz (m) Joseph Hayden (l)


As Sung By:

Bessie Smith rec Mar 2nd 1927 New York
The Carter Family '31
Bing Crosby w Jack Halloran's Orch & Chorus '59
Ottilie Patterson w Chris Barber's Jazz Band
Lavern Baker




Come along, get ready, wear your grand brand-new gown,
For there's going to be a meeting in this good good old town.
When you know everybody and they all know you,
And you get a rabbit's foot to keep away them hoodoos.


When you hear the preachin' has begin,
Bend down low for to drive away your sin;
When you get religion you'll wanna shout and sing,
There'll be a hot time in old town tonight!


My baby, when you hear them bells go dingaling,
All turn around and sweetly you must sing.
When the birds dance too, and the poets will all join in,
There'll be a hot time in old town tonight!


There'll be girls for everybody in this good good old town,
There's Miss Gonzola Davis and Miss Gondoola Brown,
There's Miss Henrietta Caesar, and she's all dressed in red;
I just hug and kiss her, and to me then she said;


"Please, oh please, oh do not let me fall,
You are mine and I love you best of all!
You be my man, I'll have no man at all,
There'll be a hot time in old town tonight!"


My baby, when you hear them bells go dingaling,
All join around and sweetly you must sing.
When the birds dance too, and the poets will all join in,
There'll be a hot time in old town tonight!


One of my favorite songs of all time. I love that line " You must be my man or ill have no man at all!"

Oh sing a song unto our selves "Stump and Stumpy"

Doing some research at the local libary I read a fasinating interview that Linda Kuel had with James Cross from the Stump and Stumpy team. After wondering what this guy looked like that was a name dropper and seemingly over the top character who seemed to know everything about anyone who was some one in Harlems heyday I finally decided to buckle down and take a moment to write it out ( or rather type it out) so I could share a wonderful clip and a bit of obscure Harlem history

Stump and Stumpy were a dance/comedy/acting duo popular from the mid 1930s to the 1950s, consisting of James "Stump" Cross, and either Eddie Hartman or Harold Cromer as "Stumpy". Their act was mostly jazz tap, and comedy expressed through song and movement.



This two man comedy dance act, big in nightclubs, radio, television and films in the 40s and 50s, was a tremendous influence on many other performers, including Martin and Lewis, and Larry Storch, who had a night club act prior to his best known role as Cpl. Agarn on F Troop. Originally consisting of James “Stump” Cross (whose birthday it is today) and Eddie “Stumpy” Hartman,the team started out on the all-black vaudeville circuits before debuting at the Apollo Theatre (where they became a staple for decades) in 1938. Harold Cromer (himself already a show biz veteran) replaced Eddie Hartman as “Stumpy” in the late 40s. Harold continued performing long after Cross dropped out — his last movie was 1984′s The Cotton Club, and you can see him perform live in about a month at the Jersey Tap Fest. You can see the team at the peak of their hilarious form here.

To find out more about these variety artists and the history of vaudeville, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble,

What Do You Know About Singer Pha Terrell "Until the real thing comes along"

So what do you know about singer Pha Terrell best known in some circles for "Until The Real Thing Comes along" with the great Andy Kirk band of the 1930s. Also he was a young Billie Holidays boyfriend and had a beautiful voice....can you say obscure? hes definately obscure today
My mother remembered this singer and her remark was No one ever sang that song like Pha and he was a cute cat



Best known as a vocalist for Andy Kirk's Twelve Clouds of Joy, the unusual first name of this artist would become an item on a Vietnamese restaurant menu if the proper vowel were switched. Pha Terrell, sometimes known to his friends as Elmer, was discovered by Kirk in the early '30s while toiling as a combination of dancer, singer, and semi-hustler at a Kansas City club. Terrell sang with the Kirk band between 1933 and 1941, after which he headed for Indianapolis, at that time a thriving jazz center. He worked there in smoochy Clarence Love's Orchestra, often tying knots in whatever strings of one-nighters were available to this type of territory band. Like just about any standup singer, Terrell eventually decided to go it alone, a career move that in his case he made out on the West Coast. A kidney ailment took him down when he was just getting started.

Available recordings by this singer can basically be evenly split between Kirk collections and various compilations based on themes such as early R&B and the Kansas City scene. His biggest hit with the Kirk outfit was the patient "Until the Real Thing Comes Along" in 1936. "All the Jive Is Gone" is another of Terrell's finest moments -- hippies will say it is "Pha Out!" -- yet listeners who find the singer's high tenor voice eerie and/or obnoxious may think the song's title best describes Terrell's departure from the Kirk band

Until the Real Thing Comes Along
(Cahn, Chaplin, Freeman, Holiner, Nichols)


Transcribed from Andy Kirk and His Twelve Clouds of Joy, vocal by Ben Thigpen, recorded March 11, 1936.
From Andy Kirk and His Twelve Clouds of Joy, 1936-1937, Chronological Classics vol. 573.

I would work for you, slave for you,
Work my body to a grave for you;
If that ain't love, it's got to do,
Until the real thing comes along.

I would moan for you, groan for you,
Work my fingers to the bones for you,
If that ain't love, it's got to do,
Until the real thing comes along.

Maybe someday, I'll go far away,
I should leave, you know I won't stay;
I need you now more than ever, somehow,
If you should leave, you know we'd both grieve.

I would rob, steal, beg, borrow, and I'd lie for you,
Lay my body down and die for you,
If that ain't love, it's got to do,
Until the real thing comes along.

Maybe someday, I'll go far away,
I should leave, you know I won't stay,
I need you now more than ever, somehow,
If you should leave, you know we'd both grieve.

I would rob, steal, beg, borrow, and I'd lie for you,
Lay my body down and die for you,
If that ain't love, it's got to do,
Until the real thing comes along.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



what little is on the internet about this man:Elmer "Pha" Terrell (May 25, 1910, Kansas City, Missouri - October 14, 1945, Los Angeles) was an American jazz singer.

Terrell was working in nightclubs locally in Kansas City in the early 1930s as a singer, dancer, and emcee when he was discovered by Andy Kirk, who hired him to be the vocalist for his group the Twelve Clouds of Joy. Terrell sang with Kirk for eight years, from 1933 to 1941, and recorded with him extensively for Decca Records, singing hits such as 1936's "Until the Real Thing Comes Along".

After 1941 Terrell moved to Indianapolis to play with Clarence Love's territory band, then moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a soloist. Terrell died of kidney failure in 1945.

Doc Cheatham

Cheatham was born in Nashville, Tennessee. He noted there was no jazz music there in his youth; like many in the United States he was introduced to the style by early recordings and touring groups at the end of the 1910s. He abandoned his family's plans for him to be a pharmacist (although retaining the medically inspired nickname "Doc") to play music, initially playing soprano and tenor saxophone in addition to trumpet in Nashville's African American Vaudeville theater. Cheatham later toured in band accompanying blues singers on the Theater Owners Booking Association circuit.[1] His early jazz influences included Henry Busse and Johnny Dunn, but when he moved to Chicago in 1924 he heard King Oliver. Oliver's playing was a revelation to Cheatham. Cheatham followed the jazz King around. Oliver gave young Cheatham a mute which Cheatham treasured and performed with for the rest of his career. A further revelation came the following year when Louis Armstrong returned to Chicago. Armstrong would be a lifelong influence on Cheatham.

[edit] Working with the name bands

Cheatham played in Albert Wynn's band (and occasionally substituted for Armstrong at the Vendome Theater), and recorded on sax with Ma Rainey before moving to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1927, where he worked with the bands of Bobby Lee and Wilber de Paris before moving to New York City the following year. After a short stint with Chick Webb he left to tour Europe with Sam Wooding's band.

Cheatham returned to the United States in 1930, and played with Marion Handy and McKinney's Cotton Pickers before landing a job with Cab Calloway. Cheatham was Calloway's lead trumpeter from 1932 through 1939.

He performed with Benny Carter, Teddy Wilson, Fletcher Henderson, and Claude Hopkins in the 1940s; after World War II he started working regularly with Latin bands in New York City, including the bands of Perez Prado, Marcelino Guerra, Ricardo Ray (on whose catchy, hook-laden album "Jala, Jala Boogaloo, Volume II", he played exquisitely (but uncredited), particularly on the track "Mr. Trumpet Man"), Machito, and others. In addition to continuing Latin gigs, he played again with Wilbur de Paris and Sammy Price. He led his own band on Broadway for five years starting in 1960, after which he toured with Benny Goodman.

[edit] Later work

In the 1970s, Doc Cheatham made a vigorous self-assessment to improve his playing, including taping himself and critically listening to the recordings, then endeavoring to eliminate all clichés from his playing. The discipline paid off, and Doc received ever-improving critical attention.

His singing career began almost by accident in a Paris recording studio on 2 May 1977. As a level and microphone check at the start of a recording session with Sammy Price's band, Cheatham sang and scatted his way through a couple of choruses of "What Can I Say Dear After I Say I'm Sorry". The miking happened to be good from the start and the tape machine was already rolling, and the track was issued on the LP Doc Cheatham: Good for What Ails You. His singing was well received and Cheatham continued to sing in addition to play music for the rest of his career.

Cheatham toured widely in addition to his regular Sunday gig leading the band at Sweet Basil in Manhattan's Greenwich Village in his final decade. During one of his frequent trips to New Orleans, Louisiana he met and befriended young trumpet virtuoso Nicholas Payton. In 1996 the two trumpeters and pianist Butch Thompson recorded a CD for Verve Records, Doc Cheatham and Nicholas Payton, which won them a Grammy Award.

Doc Cheatham continued playing until two days before his death, eleven days shy of his 92nd birthday.[2]

Who was Billie Holidays boyfriend Joe Guy and what happened to him?

Billie Holiday and her men. One thing can be said about Lady, she could pick a handsome cat. Her first husband Jimmy Monroe was a frail pimply looking cat who had been married to none other than Nina Mae McKinney (Think Halleijuah and Pinky)rumour has it he got Nina involved in drug use too hell, all parties are dead now but Jimmy was the brother of Clark Monroe who ran Monroes in Harlem which later became Mintons ( The home of bop) still their too! You know Clarke he also dated Billie, Havent been able to lay hands on a picture of clarke yet I know they exsist im just lazy as hell. Joeseph Luke Guy was Jimmys suscessor and he seems to have been by all accounts a weak man. Heres the lowdown: Joe Guy had a brief and rather odd career. A promising trumpeter who was heavily influenced by Roy Eldridge, Guy's style looked ahead towards bop. However due to his heroin use, he never developed beyond a certain intermediate level and the results, although fiery, consistently sounded uncomfortable. Guy played briefly with Teddy Hill's Orchestra in 1938 (succeeding Dizzy Gillespie) and was a key soloist with the short-lived Coleman Hawkins big band of 1940. During 1940-42 Guy played regularly at Minton's Playhouse and he appeared on many privately recorded (and later released) jam sessions. His long solos, heard next to Charlie Christian, Thelonious Monk, Hot Lips Page and Roy Eldridge, usually failed to hold their own since he was not on their level; but then again he was just in his very early twenties. Guy worked with the big bands of Lucky Millinder, Charlie Barnet and Cootie Williams (in 1942 he encouraged Williams to use some of Monk's compositions). During 1945-46 was closely associated (both musically and personally) with Billie Holiday. However Joe Guy was eventually busted for drug possession and after 1947 very little was heard from him. He died in obscurity in his home town of Birmingham at the age of 41. ~ Scott Yanow, Rovi

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/joe-guy#ixzz1dNRKlA00 definately a Bama.

LITTLE MISS. CORNSHUCKS AKA MILDRED CUMMINGS

As a kid the music was always pumping in our house even though it was the 80s it always sounded like it was the 1940's or 50's that was when my parents were young and "Hip". However their was one song " How Long" by Mildred Cummings AKA Cornshucks...Obscure today but Id like to share her story with you!

LITTLE MISS CORNSHUCKS (By Dave Penny)

Born Mildred Cummings, 26 May 1923, Dayton, Ohio
Died 11 November 1999, Indianapolis, Indiana

"In 1943, when I was 19 or so years old, I went to a nightclub in the northeast black ghetto section of Washington and heard a singer whose name was Little Miss Cornshucks and I thought, "My God!!!" She was better than anything I'd ever heard. She would come out like a country girl with a bandana around her head, a basket in her hand, and so forth, which she'd set aside fairly early on into the show. She could sing the blues better than anybody I've ever heard to this day. I asked her that night if she would mind if I made a record of her for myself. We cut "Kansas City" along with some other blues and she also sang a song called "So Long". She had such a wonderful sound and I remember just thinking, "My God! My God!" And I didn't have a record company, I just made those records for myself."

Ahmet Ertegun, from What'd I Say: The Atlantic Story (page 15).

Born Mildred Cummings in Dayton, Ohio, on 26th May 1923, Little Miss Cornshucks - with her cute "rural maid" routine - became a major attraction at Chicago's Club De Lisa by the time she was 18, and began appearing at the Rhumboogie Club from its opening in 1942. By the following year she was touring nationwide and being recorded privately by Ahmet Ertegun; which not only germinated the seed of Ahmet owning his own record company, but also provided him with one of his first major successes with Russ Morgan's 1940 hit "So Long", recorded by Ruth Brown in 1949.

A multi-talented vaudeville performer, whose act incorporated comedy and novelty vocals as much as "serious singing", Little Miss Cornshucks' own commercial recording career began in late 1946 with and for bandleader Marl Young's Chicago-based Sunbeam Records. Young was a highly-regarded jazz pianist from Virginia who had co-owned The Sunbeam Recording Studio since 1941. Five years later he inaugurated the Sunbeam label to showcase his own band and various unrecorded vocalists, including and especially, Little Miss Cornshucks. After her releases for the label, Sunbeam stumbled on for a few more releases but ceased around late 1947, although two of her sides - "So Long" and "For Old Time's Sake" - were acquired by Al Benson's Old Swing-Master Records and reissued in September 1949. By that time Cornshucks had made more recordings on the West Coast during the 1948 AFM recording ban for Roy Milton's Miltone Records with Maxwell Davis and The Blenders, including standards such as "He's Funny That Way" and "Why Was I Born?" as well as more original work and more contemporary covers like Lloyd Glen's "True (You Don't Love Me)", made into a recent hit by both Paul Gayten and Camille Howard.

In 1949 she recorded a one-off session for Aladdin Records, covering Frank Sinatra's 1946 hit "Time After Time" and the Jay McShann/Crown Prince Waterford wailer "You Turned Your Back On Me", while a version of Leroy Carr's "How Long" remains unissued. Aladdin also purchased her Miltone masters, but released just one, the dramatic "Keep Your Hand On Your Heart", while most were also reissued on DeLuxe for the mid-western market. The Decca Records subsidiary, Coral, recorded and issued three releases by Cornshucks between 1950 and 1952, including a reprise of her career song "So Long", after which the releases dried up until she was brought out of retirement for an LP on Chess produced by Sonny Thompson in late 1960.

Although she died in obscurity at her home in Indianapolis on 11th November 1999, her valuable recordings issued between 1947 and 1952 prove the tremendous influence this artist exerted over her peers, and her records would go on to inspire later performers like Billy Wright, Ruth Brown, Johnny Ray, Wynona Carr, and LaVern Baker who would start her career in the late 1940s as Little Miss Sharecropper in emulation of her idol.

Recommended listening: The Chronological Little Miss Cornshucks 1947-1951 - Classics 5059
Chess Blues: Global Roots - Spectrum 5445402 (contains one 1960 Chess recording "It Do Me So Good")


These pages were saved from "This Is My Story" for reference usage only. Please note that these pages were not originally published or written by BlackCat Rockabilly Europe. For comments or information please contact Dik de Heer at dik.de.heer@hetnet.nl

WHO IN THE HELL WAS CLEO "PATRA " BROWN????

Live and learn!Class is now in session! I adore the obscure and revel in unlocking mysteries of days gone by! I savor a new glint into anyone who I personally adore past.
Whether it be scurrilous or a genuine, unserving good damn deed!

So, of course you can imagine my glee as I was hanging out on the net I read that they wanted Billie to sing a bit more like Cleo Brown. Of course in my ignorance I was aghast "How dare this writer defame MY Billie! But, something said "Google the name" and I read it for myself.

Now of course we are all familiar with John Hammond and the mysterious powers that be wanting Holiday to resurrect a bunch of Ethel Waters, Clara Smith tunes of the 20's and her classic reply "I don't wanna sing that old shit man its 1935!" Funny now right? But when she walked into the Columbia studios for the now famous "Miss. Brown to you and What a little Moonlight can do sessions they wanted her to sing more in the Cleo Brown "goodtime style which personally, this blogger loathes tho it was the great depression and Im sure they ( like us today) could use a bit o damn cheer! she (Cleo) sounds so goddamn dated I almost expect to hear applause and then see Al freakin Jolson come out and do a Black Bottom dance in full black face.

However Billies record (what a little Moonlighht can do" actually charted #12 in 1935 and the flip side charted at 20. That made the big guys leave her alone and she soon began fronting her own studio orchestra ( which was actually a ad hoc group of some of the greatest musicians that were in NYC at the time).

Cleo Brown? Who the hell is Cleo Brown? Often referred to as Cleo Patra brown ( aint that some smess? well....With the exception of an album that she made in 1987, 1935-1951 is all anyone has heard of the recordings of pianist-singer Cleo Brown. Brown, who has sometimes been cited by Dave Brubeck as an early influence (although the musical connection really cannot be heard), was an excellent pianist and a personable good-time singer. She recorded four sessions for Decca during 1935-36, in which she is backed by guitar, bass, and drums, performing such numbers as "Lookie, Lookie, Lookie, Here Comes Cookie," "The Stuff Is Here And It's Mellow," "Mama Don't Want No Peas An' Rice An' Cocoanut Oil" and the unusual "When Hollywood Goes Black And Tan." In addition, she romps on the solo "Pelican Stomp," her part from a Decca All Star Revue is included, and there is one session apiece from 1949, 1950, and 1951. It seems odd that she never became a big star. Needless to say, this CD is the perfect way to obtain and enjoy this lost legend's recordings. ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide Im still investigating this woman who because of her tiny body of work is NEVER even discussed these days and once again thanks to Billie another diamond has been found in the ghetto wasteland of obscure music....Jahlaune Hunt 2011