Friday, November 6, 2015

Rock And Roll Wedding

 

Bixie Crawford

How Big A Fool

Rock And Roll Wedding

Empire Records 45-102
1956

"Rock And Roll Wedding" was also recorded the same year by Helen Grayco (Vik Records), Ella Mae Morse (Capitol Records) and Sunny Gale (RCA Victor Records). 

Bixie Crawford was born Birdie Marjorie Hairston in 1921 in Guthrie, seat of the Logan County, in north-central Oklahoma just to the north of Oklahoma City.     She attended Fisk and Lincoln Universities, where she majored in music, studying the piano, the alto sax, and the congas. Benny Carter heard her singing at a picnic in a park one day and hired her the next day.
After about a year in Carter's band, she worked in the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra shortly before the leader died in 1947.

She did three months with Count Basie and gigged with Louis Jordan in 1949-1950, then became a schoolteacher in Los Angeles. When Count Basie reestablished his big band in 1951, she was invited to join and remained with him for about three years. 

Bixie Crawford recordings can also be found on Exclusive (with Buddy Banks orchestra, 1946), King (1949), RCA (1951), United (1953), C Note (1956) and Indigo (1960).

In the early sixties, she returned to school teaching.  She was then known as Bixie Crawford Wyatt.  She died in 1988 in Culver Cirty, California.



As Bixie Harris, she recorded "Patience and Fortitude" (a vocal duet with the leader) on 
Benny Carter's January 5, 1946 record date for DeLuxe (which took place in New York City).
 
 

Bixie Crawford, 1953




No comments:

Post a Comment