One thing we can all agree on about Kay Starr, whose centennial we celebrate this summer, is that she was a great singer who enjoyed a remarkably long run as a pop star. Exactly what kind of a singer and pop star she was, though, is a matter of debate. Consider the nature of her biggest hits, almost all in the top 10: “Wheel of Fortune” is in the straight-down-the-middle dramatic pop style of the early ’50s, which puts her in the same category as big band veterans like Patti Page and Kitty Kallen. “Bonaparte’s Retreat,” a bluegrass tune, was expanded via a big band swing orchestration — Bill Monroe meets Benny Goodman. “Kay’s Lament,” a straight-up blues, was sung with a male chorus on top of a Professor Longhair-like New Orleans street parade backbeat. “Rock and Roll Waltz” was a novelty that’s no one’s idea of real “rock ’n’ roll,” but nonetheless it’s a crucial part of cultural history as the song that convinced RCA that this new-ish music with a goofy name was worth looking into. “And That Reminds Me” is Euro-pop (some would say “Eurotrash”), an Italian import retrofitted with English words to make it fit into this era of angst-y anthems. “Hoop De Doo” is an unabashed polka, but with fairly literate lyrics by Frank Loesser, just at the moment he was writing “Guys and Dolls.” Starr had a cry in her voice that not only empowered her to sing blues and ballads better than almost anyone else, but on a 1961 TV appearance she even convincingly chanted a Hebrew prayer, “Eli, Eli.”Clearly it was Starr’s diversity that allowed her to have so many hits in so many different kinds of popular music. Ironically, it’s the lack of a specific focus that prevents her from being as widely recognized today. She stayed popular and recorded consistently — with successful albums and singles all the way from World War II to the coming of the Beatles — yet rarely receives the attention she deserves as an avatar of pop or jazz. When we talk about great jazz singers, we’re usually not talking about ladies who sang bluegrass and polkas. Yet Starr was a formidable swinger, one worth mentioning in the same breath as such slightly older contemporaries as Ella Fitzgerald or Anita O’Day. That’s probably why she gravitated toward jazz and the swing style. Born in Oklahoma on July 21, 1922, she had the twang in her voice and the personality of a great country singer, but she probably realized that the big bands were a better outlet for her rhythmic talent. Depending on what you read (I doubt Kay herself knew for certain), Catherine Laverne Starks was either 50 percent or 75 percent Native American (Iroquois or Seminole, it’s open to discussion). She was raised in Texas, where she grew up serenading her family’s chickens. At 15, she was singing in Memphis when she was heard by the great jazz violinist Joe Venuti, then leading a big band at the Hotel Peabody. From about 1937 to 1944, she apprenticed with a half-dozen major jazz orchestras: Venuti, Bob Crosby, Glenn Miller, Wingy Manone, and, most importantly, Charlie Barnet, with whom she landed several hits and milestones, such as her amazing extended arrangement of Willard Robison’s “Sharecropper Blues.” In the years between the two musicians’ union recording bans (1944-47), which concluded with her signing with Capitol Records, she flourished as a pure jazz singer, in a series of sessions for independent labels and transcription firms. They invariably co-star her with some of the great soloists of the period: Venuti, Les Paul, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Nat King Cole, Willie Smith, Barney Bigard. Thanks to her friendship with the veteran cornettist Red Nichols, she developed a specialty as a contemporary singer of great tunes from the jazz age, like “Mama Goes Where Papa Goes.”The ’50s were Starr’s decade of notable hit singles, but beginning in 1955 she started making a classic series of full-length albums, first for RCA Records and then back at Capitol: “Blue Starr,” “Rockin’ with Kay,” her Gospel album “I Hear The Word,” “Movin’,” “Movin’ on Broadway,” and “I Cry By Night,” the latter co-starring Ben Webster. All are worthy of a place among the best vocal LPs ever made. She was as popular as ever up until the moment when the rock ’n’ roll kids (whom she had, ironically, helped find a berth at the major labels with “Rock and Roll Waltz”) started eating everyone’s lunch in the mid-1960s.There were other records, including a 1968 collaboration with Count Basie and, in her 60s, a live set from Freddy’s on the East Side. Her last hurrah was a guest shot with Tony Bennett on his 2001 hit CD, “Playing with My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues.” She was active into the 2000s, and lived to see 94. The shame of her centennial is that there’s no big boxed set to commemorate her birthday; where’s Mosaic or Bear Family records when you need them? (Cracked Records, a specialist micro-label, has released three volumes in a chronological series covering 1945-49, if you can find them.) Kay Starr deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, but it’s open to debate as to which one. Note: I’m featuring three hours of my favorite Kay Starr recordings this Saturday, August 13, on my KSDS radio series “Sing! Sing! Sing!” You can listen live or stream afterward at https://www.jazz88.org/.
