Video of the Day - Alberta Hunter

Alberta Hunter was an American blues singer and songwriter. Her career had started back in the early 1920s, and despite her upbringing, she went on to become one of the most famous jazz and blues performers of her time. In the 1950s, shocked by her mother’s death, Hunter retired from the limelight and worked as a nurse for 11 years. Hunter was working at New York's Goldwater Memorial Hospital in 1961 when record producer Chris Albertson asked her to break an 11-year absence from the recording studio.

Hunter finally got her break when she moved to New York City. She performed with such famous jazz names as Bricktop and Louis Armstrong. She made her home in the city and bought more than one house there, but it was a constant reminder of the struggle for work. She felt more comfortable in Europe where the work was more readily available. Equally important to Alberta was the fact that racism was not as strong a factor outside of the United States as it was inside. I had the privilege of seeing Dame Alberta Hunter singing the blues in São Paulo, some two years before she passed away in 1984. HC.