Nellie Lutcher

Nellie Lutcher, singer: born Lake Charles, Louisiana 15 October 1915; twice married, secondly Leonel Lewis (one son); died Los Angeles 8 June 2007.

Nellie Lutcher's passionate vocals and piano playing have influenced many performers, notably Nina Simone, although Lutcher herself is only known for a few records, notably "He's a Real Gone Guy", "My Mother's Eyes" and "Fine Brown Frame". The American jazz critic Leonard Feather wrote in 1947 that she was "not pretty, or even handsome, but she is a tall, big, somehow striking person whose visual appeal lies in the ability to change moods and express a wide range of ideas, both musical and humorous. Nellie 'sells' every word of every song."

When Nellie Lutcher started recording in her own right in 1947, Capitol Records, wanting to make her seem younger, said that she was born in 1915, but in fact she was born in 1912, in Lake Charles, Louisiana. She paid tribute to her home town with her exuberant piano playing on "Lake Charles Boogie".

Her father, Isaac, was a jazz musician, and her mother, Susie, a church organist. She was one of 15 children. Nellie's mother realised her daughter's latent talent and arranged piano lessons with the wife of Nellie's headmaster in exchange for doing her washing. "Mrs Reynaud couldn't improvise, but she touched my life forever with her marvellous way of playing," Nellie Lutcher said later.

At only eight years old, Nellie would play the piano and the organ at church meetings, and then she learnt the mandolin and guitar. When the legendary blues singer Ma Rainey arrived for a booking in Lake Charles, her pianist was ill and the 12-year-old Nellie took his place.

She joined her father in Clarence Hart's Imperial Jazz Band when only 14, but both Mrs Reynaud and Nellie's mother were worried about this move. "She may be going straight to hell," said Mrs Reynaud, who saw her instead as a concert pianist. (Nellie Lutcher was to merge the possibilities with a jazz interpretation of Dvorák's Humoresque in 1947.) Whilst in her early teens, Nellie Lutcher married the band's trumpet player, but it lasted only two months.

In 1933, Lutcher joined the 16-piece Southern Rhythm Boys and soon started writing their arrangements. In 1935 she moved to Los Angeles, where she married Leonel Lewis, also from Lake Charles, and they had a son, Talmadge, although the marriage only lasted four years. By now, Lutcher was developing her own style, influenced by Earl Hines, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and her friend Nat "King" Cole. One of her best recordings, admittedly little known, is of Ellington's "Baby, Please Stop and Think About Me" (1949). It contains a glorious example of Lutcher singing scat to her own piano accompaniment.

In 1947 Talmadge suggested that his mother should take part in a charity show at Hollywood High School. An executive at Capitol Records heard the broadcast and, after receiving a recommendation from the crooner Joe Alexander, signed her to the label. Her first session, attributed to Nellie Lutcher and Her Rhythm, included the song she performed that night, "The One I Love Belongs To Someone Else", as well as her first hit single, the risqué "Hurry On Down", which went to No 2 on the rhythm and blues chart. This was followed by her equally successful composition "He's A Real Gone Guy". A revival of "My Mother's Eyes" was, by Lutcher's standards, sung straight. She returned to the innnuendo for "There's Another Mule In Your Stall".

Capitol Records did not have a UK outlet until 1949, when seven singles were released in as many months. Jack Jackson on his Record Round-up for the Light Programme promoted her songs, "Hurry On Down" and "Fine Brown Frame", and she appeared on a UK variety tour, compered by Jackson, the following year. She received very good reviews, with the Daily Herald describing her as "12 stones of fine brown frame and a 39-inch waist".

Also in 1950, Lutcher sang with Cole on the witty "For You My Love", a prototype for the duets from Dinah Washington and Brook Benton. The B-side, "Can I Come In For a Second", written by Sammy Cahn, was an attempt to write another "Baby, It's Cold Outside".

In 1951 Lutcher, with an orchestra for the first time, recorded "The Birth of the Blues" and "I Want to Be Near You", but, for some inexplicable reason, she was losing her appeal with the record-buying public and Capitol dropped her. She was a subject on the US version of This Is Your Life in 1952, but even that did not boost the sales of her single "Muchly Verily" for Okeh. An excellent album of standards, Our New Nellie, for Liberty in 1956 was promoted as a comeback album, but it sold poorly. She said at the time, "You've got to be honest and play the music the way you feel it, no matter what type of music is popular."

With minor exceptions, Lutcher's recording career was over in 1957. Ironically, Nina Simone effectively started where she left off and showed Lutcher one way her talent could have developed. Lutcher performed very little after the 1950s, preferring to deal in property and using her astute personality to resolve problems as a director for the Musicians' Union.

Spencer Leigh