Alberta Hunter

Alberta Hunter was a pioneering African-American popular singer whose path crossed the streams of jazz, blues, and pop music. While she made important contributions to all of these stylistic genres, she is claimed exclusively by no single mode of endeavor. Hunter recorded in six decades of the 20th century, and enjoyed a career in music that outlasted most human lives. Hunter was born in Memphis, and depending on which account you read, she either ran away from home or her family relocated to Chicago when she was 12 years old. Her career began in the bawdy houses on the south...