b. Mildred Rinker, 27 February 1907, nr. Tekoa, Washington, USA, d. 12 December 1951, Poughkeepsie, New York, USA. By the early 20s Bailey was singing and playing piano in silent-picture theatres as well as working as a song demonstrator and performing in revues and on the radio. When only 18 years old, she was headlining a Hollywood nightclub, singing popular songs, blues and some of the more raunchy vaudeville numbers. She regularly worked with jazz musicians, with whom she displayed a remarkable affinity, and made her first records with guitarist Eddie Lang in 1929. That same year she was hired by Paul Whiteman, in whose band she encountered some of the best white jazz musicians of the day (her brother, Al Rinker, with Bing Crosby and Harry Barris, was a member of Whiteman's vocal trio, the Rhythm Boys). Already a well-known radio personality, she was now offered innumerable engagements and in time had her own regular show. In 1932, she had a massive hit with Hoagy Carmichael's "Rockin' Chair" and thereafter was known as the "Rockin' Chair Lady".

Listen to Mildred Bailey at Finetune.

• (1994)  The Rockin' Chair Lady
• (1939)  The Incomparable Mildred Bailey

• Rockin' Chair
• I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles
• Don't Take Your Love From Me
• Lover, Come Back To Me
• Blue Rain

• Billie Holiday
• Ella Fitzgerald
• Bing Crosby
• Peggy Lee
• Sarah Vaughan
• Boswell Sisters
• Dinah Washington
• Bessie Smith
• Rosemary Clooney
• Louis Armstrong
• The Mills Brothers
• Rudy Vallee
• Duke Ellington
• Tony Bennett
• Dean Martin
• Abbey Lincoln
• Nina Simone
• The Ink Spots
• Anita O'Day
• Frank Sinatra

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