- published: 19 Jun 2006
- views: 260123
Kay Starr (born July 21, 1922) is an American pop and jazz singer who enjoyed considerable success in the 1940s and 1950s. She is best remembered for introducing two songs that became #1 hits in the 1950s, "Wheel of Fortune" and "The Rock And Roll Waltz".
Starr was successful in every field of music she tried: jazz, pop and country. But her roots were in jazz; and Billie Holiday, considered by many the greatest jazz singer of all time, called Starr "the only white woman who could sing the blues."
She was born Katherine Laverne Starks on a reservation in Dougherty, Oklahoma. Her father, Harry, was a full-blooded Iroquois Indian; her mother, Annie, was of mixed Irish and American Indian heritage. When her father got a job installing water sprinkler systems for the Automatical Sprinkler Company, the family moved to Dallas, Texas. There, her mother raised chickens, whom Kay used to serenade in the coop. Kay's aunt Nora was impressed by her 7-year-old niece's singing and arranged for her to sing on a Dallas radio station, WRR. First she took a talent competition by storm, finishing 3rd one week and placing first every week thereafter. Eventually she had her own 15-minute show. She sang pop and "hillbilly" songs with a piano accompaniment. By age 10 she was making $3 a night, which was quite a salary in the Depression days.
Back home again in Indiana,
And it seems that I can see
The gleamin' candlelight,
Atill shinin' bright,
Through the sycomores for me.
The new mown had sends all its fragrance
From the fields I used to roam.
When I dream about the moonlight on the Wabash,
Then I long for my Indiana home.
Oh, I have always been a wanderer
Over land and sea,
Yet a moonbeam on the water
Casts a spell over me;
A vision fair I see,
Again I long to be;
Back home again in Indiana,
And it seems that I can see
The gleamin' candlelight,
Atill shinin' bright,
Through the sycamores for me.
The new mown had sends all its fragrance
From the fields I used to roam.
When I dream about the moonlight on the Wabash,
Then I long for my Indiana home,