LaVern Baker

Ms. Baker was the first black artist to file a legal grievance against white artists who produced pop covers of their hits.

LaVern Baker was born Delores Williams on November 11, 1929, in Chicago. Her aunt was the classic blues vocalist Memphis Minnie, and she began to sing with friends at an early age. The raw power in her voice, as it did for so many other African American singers, came from gospel; Baker joined the choir at her Baptist church at the age of 12. By her late teens, she was singing blues and pop in Chicago nightclubs. She had a separate alias for each of the two images she wanted to project; for the down-home crowds recently arrived in Chicago, she took the name of Little Miss Sharecropper, while for other club dates she used the name Bea Baker. The name might have been derived from Memphis Minnie's real name, Merline Baker.

After two flops, success finally came around a silly bit of fluff called "Tweedle Dee," somehow turned into something special by that fiery, sexy voice. 14 R&B chart hits followed, but success on the pop charts was harder to come by, thanks largely to competing label Mercury, who hired white singer Georgia Gibbs to cover her songs for the pop market. This so infuriated Baker that she petitioned the U.S. Congress to pass laws making an arrangement as legally untouchable as a composition. She lost that fight, but it set an important precedent.

In later years while traveling to entertain the troops in Vietnam in the late Sixties, Baker contracted pneumonia and was rushed to the military's Subic Bay hospital in the Philippines. Baker ended up living on the islands for twenty years, working as entertainment director for the Marines nightclub there. It wasn't until the late Eighties, spurred on by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation's efforts, that LaVern returned to America, working on the Dick Tracy soundtrack, appearing on Broadway, and cutting new blues-oriented records for her fan base.

Towards the end of her life, she suffered from diabetes and a series of strokes. The diabetes ended up claiming both her legs. But Lavern performed to the end, impressing crowds of fans with her exuberance, even when singing from a wheelchair. But diabetes is a persistent disease, and the wonderful, booming, gospel-tinged voice of Lavern Baker was silenced on March 10, 1997, a tragic loss to the world of music.

Source: Rolling Stones Magazines 30th Anniversary Edition (Nov. 1997)