“We sing the blues because our hearts have been hurt, our souls have been disturbed.”
TRQ: Alberta Hunter, Born April 1, 1895
American blues singer Alberta Hunter, who was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2011, was born in Memphis, Tennessee. At the age of eleven, Hunter did not get along with her family and ran away to Chicago. She survived through working in a boarding house and sneaking to clubs to sing. By the time she was twenty years old, Hunter was joined by her mother in Chicago and performing regularly at the Panama Café with some of the world’s best blues singers.
A lesbian, Hunter was mindful of her public reputation and recognized that marriage would earn her respectability. In 1919 she married Willard Saxby Townsend, whom she met while performing in Cincinnati, Ohio and described as “… a fine young man and a perfect gentleman. I’ve always been crazy about class.” However, she claims that she never shared a bed with Townsend and that the marriage was never consummated.
Though she would eventually relocate to New York City with her mother, by 1927 Hunter was regularly performing in clubs and theatres in cities around the world. Lottie Tyler, niece of comedian Bert Williams, accompanied Hunter to Paris and the two were in involved in a relationship that lasted until Tyler’s death. In 1928 Hunter joined the cast of the London production of Showboat.
During the Great Depression Hunter regularly worked in Europe where work was more available. In 1935 she was cast in Radio Parade, an English film, and her role in the final sequence caught the attention of NBC, who hired her for a radio show. In 1938, as War World II approached, Hunter settled permanently in the US and toured with the USO.
After the death of her mother in 1957, Hunter lost her desire to perform. For twenty years, she worked as a nurse after misrepresenting her age. In 1977, when Hunter was forced into retirement from nursing, it was assumed that she had reached the retirement age of 70, when in fact she was actually 82 years old.
Furthermore, while Hunter recorded two albums during her nursing years, her singing career reached a new peak after retirement when she recorded four more widely acclaimed albums. Amtrak Blues, recorded in 1978, is considered one of the highlights of her long career. She also performed regularly at The Cookery in Greenwich Village until her death in October 1984.
In 2009 the Blues Hall of Fame payed tribute to the Amtrak Blues, and formally inducted Hunter In 2011. The Memphis Music Hall of Fame inducted her in 2015.
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Sources:
The Power of Pride: Style-makers and Rule-breakers of the Harlem Renaissance
Treaster, Joseph B. (September 1978). “Belting Out the Blues at 83”. Quest/78. pp. 23–28.
