Kay Starr
Encyclopedia
Kay Starr is an American
pop
and jazz
singer who enjoyed considerable success in the 1940s and 50s. 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."
. 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 chicken
s, 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.
When Starks' father changed jobs, the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee
, where she continued performing on the radio
. She sang "Western swing music," still mostly a mix of country
and pop
. During this time at Memphis radio station WMPS, misspellings in her fan mail inspired her and her parents to change her name to "Kay Starr."
At 15, she was chosen to sing with the Joe Venuti orchestra. Venuti had a contract to play in the Peabody Hotel in Memphis
which called for his band to feature a girl singer, which he did not have. Venuti's road manager heard Kay Starr on the radio and suggested her to Venuti. She was still in junior high school and her parents insisted on a midnight curfew.
Although she had brief stints in 1939 with Bob Crosby
and Glenn Miller
(who hired her in July of that year when his regular singer, Marion Hutton
, was sick), she spent most of her next few years with Venuti, until he dissolved his band in 1942. It was, however, with Miller that she cut her first record: Baby Me/Love with a Capital You. It was not a great success, in part because the band played in a key more appropriate for Marion Hutton that, unfortunately, did not suit Kay's vocal range.
After finishing high school, she moved to Los Angeles
and signed with Wingy Manone
's band; then from 1943 to 1945 she sang with Charlie Barnet
's band. She then retired for a year because she developed pneumonia
and later developed nodes on her vocal cords, and lost her voice as a result of fatigue and overwork.
In 1946 she became a soloist, and in 1947 signed a solo contract with Capitol Records
. Capitol had a number of other female singers signed up (such as Peggy Lee
, Ella Mae Morse
, Jo Stafford
, and Margaret Whiting
), so it was hard to find her a niche. In 1948 when the American Federation of Musicians
was threatening a strike, Capitol wanted to have all its singers record a lot of songs for future release. Since she was junior to all these other artists, every song she wanted to sing got offered to all the others, leaving her a list of old songs from earlier in the century, which nobody else wanted to record.
Around 1950 Starr made a trip back home to Dougherty and heard a fiddle recording of Pee Wee King
's song, Bonaparte's Retreat
.
She liked it so much that she wanted to record it, and contacted Roy Acuff
's publishing house in Nashville, Tennessee
, and spoke to Acuff directly. He was happy to let her record it, but it took a while for her to make clear that she was a singer, not a fiddler, and therefore needed to have some lyrics written. Eventually Acuff came up with a new lyric, and "Bonaparte's Retreat" became her biggest hit up to that point, with close to a million sales.
In 1955, she signed with RCA Victor Records. However, at this time, traditional pop music was being superseded by rock and roll
, and Kay had only two hits, the aforementioned which is sometimes considered her attempt to sing rock and roll and sometimes as a song making fun of it, "The Rock And Roll Waltz". She stayed at RCA Victor until 1959, hitting the top ten only once more with My Heart Reminds Me, then returned to Capitol.
Most of her songs have jazz influences, and, like those of Frankie Laine
and Johnnie Ray
, are sung in a style that sound decidedly close to the rock and roll songs that follow. These include her smash hits Wheel of Fortune
(her biggest hit, number one for 10 weeks), Side by Side, The Man Upstairs, and Rock and Roll Waltz. One of her biggest hits was her version of The Man with the Bag, a Christmas
song, which is heard ubiquitously every holiday season in stores, restaurants, and on the radio.
As the 1950s drew to a close, Kay Starr's popularity began to decline. She appeared in such television series as NBC
's Club Oasis
, mostly associated with the bandleader Spike Jones
. However, Starr recorded several albums, including Movin’ (1959), an up-tempo jazz album. Others included Losers, Weepers… (1960) and I Cry By Night (1962) in the jazz/blues genre, as well as a country album entitled Just Plain Country (1962).
After departing from Capitol Records for a second time in 1966, Starr continued touring concert venues in the US and the UK. She also recorded several jazz and country albums on small independent labels, including a 1968 album with Count Basie
, and Back To The Roots (1975). In the late 1980s she was featured in the revue 3 Girls with Helen O'Connell
and Margaret Whiting
, and in 1993 she toured the United Kingdom as part of Pat Boone
’s April Love Tour. Most recently her first "live" album, Live At Freddy's, was released in 1997. Kay Starr performs Blue and Sentimental with Tony Bennett
on his 2001 album Playin' with My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues.
In 2006 a remix by Stuhr
of Starr's vocal of the classic I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm
was used in a commercial for Telus
.
As of 2007 she resides in Bel Air, California; married six times, she has a daughter and a grandchild.
Starr was one of the first female artists to perform country western swing music. As of 2010 she is still performing.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
and jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
singer who enjoyed considerable success in the 1940s and 50s. She is best remembered for introducing two songs that became #1 hits in the 1950s, "Wheel of Fortune
Wheel of Fortune (song)
"Wheel of Fortune" is a popular song written by Bennie Benjamin and George David Weiss and published in 1951. It was originally recorded in 1951 for Atlantic Records by The Cardinals. In one of the earliest examples of a major record label covering an independent black hit, Capitol recreated The...
" and "The Rock And Roll Waltz".
Starr was successful in every field of music she tried: jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
and country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
. But her roots were in jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
; and Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
, considered by many the greatest jazz singer of all time, called Starr "the only white woman who could sing the blues."
Life and career
She was born Katherine Laverne Starks on a reservation in Dougherty, OklahomaDougherty, Oklahoma
Dougherty is a town in Murray County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 224 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Dougherty is located at ....
. Her father, Harry, was a full-blooded Iroquois
Iroquois
The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...
Indian
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
; her mother, Annie, was of mixed Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
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
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
. There, her mother raised chicken
Chicken
The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...
s, whom Kay used to serenade in the coop
Chicken coop
A chicken coop is a building where female chickens are kept. Inside there are often nest boxes for egg laying and perches on which the birds can sleep, although coops for meat birds seldom have either of these features....
. Kay's aunt Nora was impressed by her 7-year-old niece's singing and arranged for her to sing on a Dallas radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
station, WRR
WRR (FM)
WRR is a municipally-owned radio station, owned by the city of Dallas, Texas, that broadcasts a classical music format....
. 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
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
and "hillbilly"
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
songs with a piano accompaniment. By age 10 she was making $3 a night, which was quite a salary in the Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
days.
When Starks' father changed jobs, the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
, where she continued performing on the radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
. She sang "Western swing music," still mostly a mix of country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
and pop
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
. During this time at Memphis radio station WMPS, misspellings in her fan mail inspired her and her parents to change her name to "Kay Starr."
At 15, she was chosen to sing with the Joe Venuti orchestra. Venuti had a contract to play in the Peabody Hotel in Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
which called for his band to feature a girl singer, which he did not have. Venuti's road manager heard Kay Starr on the radio and suggested her to Venuti. She was still in junior high school and her parents insisted on a midnight curfew.
Although she had brief stints in 1939 with Bob Crosby
Bob Crosby
George Robert "Bob" Crosby was an American dixieland bandleader and vocalist, best known for his group the Bob-Cats.-Family:...
and Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...
(who hired her in July of that year when his regular singer, Marion Hutton
Marion Hutton
Marion Hutton was a United States singer and actress.-Biography:Born as Marion Thornburg, the elder sister of actress Betty Hutton, their father abandoned their family when they were both young: he later committed suicide. Their mother worked a variety of jobs to support the family until she...
, was sick), she spent most of her next few years with Venuti, until he dissolved his band in 1942. It was, however, with Miller that she cut her first record: Baby Me/Love with a Capital You. It was not a great success, in part because the band played in a key more appropriate for Marion Hutton that, unfortunately, did not suit Kay's vocal range.
After finishing high school, she moved to Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
and signed with Wingy Manone
Wingy Manone
Wingy Manone was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, singer, and bandleader. His major recordings included "Tar Paper Stomp", "Nickel in the Slot", "Downright Disgusted Blues", "There'll Come a Time ", and "Tailgate Ramble".- Biography :Manone was born Joseph Matthews Mannone in New Orleans,...
's band; then from 1943 to 1945 she sang with Charlie Barnet
Charlie Barnet
Charles Daly Barnet was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader.His major recordings were "Skyliner", "Cherokee", "The Wrong Idea", "Scotch and Soda", "In a Mizz", and "Southland Shuffle".-Early life:...
's band. She then retired for a year because she developed pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
and later developed nodes on her vocal cords, and lost her voice as a result of fatigue and overwork.
In 1946 she became a soloist, and in 1947 signed a solo contract with Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
. Capitol had a number of other female singers signed up (such as Peggy Lee
Peggy Lee
Peggy Lee was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress in a career spanning six decades. From her beginning as a vocalist on local radio to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, she forged a sophisticated persona, evolving into a multi-faceted artist and...
, Ella Mae Morse
Ella Mae Morse
Ella Mae Morse , was an American popular singer. Morse blended jazz, country, pop, and R&B.-Career:Morse was born in Mansfield, Texas, United States. She was hired by Jimmy Dorsey when she was 14 years old. Dorsey believed she was 19, and when he was informed by the school board that he was now...
, Jo Stafford
Jo Stafford
Jo Elizabeth Stafford was an American singer of traditional pop music and jazz standards and occasional actress whose career ran from the late 1930s to the early 1960s...
, and Margaret Whiting
Margaret Whiting
Margaret Whiting was a singer of American popular music and country music who first made her reputation during the 1940s and 1950s.-Youth:...
), so it was hard to find her a niche. In 1948 when the American Federation of Musicians
American Federation of Musicians
The American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada is a labor union of professional musicians in the United States and Canada...
was threatening a strike, Capitol wanted to have all its singers record a lot of songs for future release. Since she was junior to all these other artists, every song she wanted to sing got offered to all the others, leaving her a list of old songs from earlier in the century, which nobody else wanted to record.
Around 1950 Starr made a trip back home to Dougherty and heard a fiddle recording of Pee Wee King
Pee Wee King
Julius Frank Anthony Kuczynski , known professionally as Pee Wee King, was an American country music songwriter and recording artist best known for co-writing "The Tennessee Waltz"....
's song, Bonaparte's Retreat
Bonaparte's Retreat (Pee Wee King song)
"Bonaparte's Retreat" is the title of a song written by American country music artist Pee Wee King. Various versions of the melody themes exist as traditional fiddle tunes dating back to before the turn of the 20th Century, and probably well before that. King's version was released as a single in...
.
She liked it so much that she wanted to record it, and contacted Roy Acuff
Roy Acuff
Roy Claxton Acuff was an American country music singer, fiddler, and promoter. Known as the King of Country Music, Acuff is often credited with moving the genre from its early string band and "hoedown" format to the star singer-based format that helped make it internationally successful.Acuff...
's publishing house in Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, and spoke to Acuff directly. He was happy to let her record it, but it took a while for her to make clear that she was a singer, not a fiddler, and therefore needed to have some lyrics written. Eventually Acuff came up with a new lyric, and "Bonaparte's Retreat" became her biggest hit up to that point, with close to a million sales.
In 1955, she signed with RCA Victor Records. However, at this time, traditional pop music was being superseded by rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
, and Kay had only two hits, the aforementioned which is sometimes considered her attempt to sing rock and roll and sometimes as a song making fun of it, "The Rock And Roll Waltz". She stayed at RCA Victor until 1959, hitting the top ten only once more with My Heart Reminds Me, then returned to Capitol.
Most of her songs have jazz influences, and, like those of Frankie Laine
Frankie Laine
Frankie Laine, born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio , was a successful American singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spanned 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to his final performance of "That's My Desire" in 2005...
and Johnnie Ray
Johnnie Ray
Johnnie Ray was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Popular for most of the 1950s, Ray has been cited by critics as a major precursor of what would become rock and roll, for his jazz and blues-influenced music and his animated stage personality.-Early life:John Alvin Ray was born in...
, are sung in a style that sound decidedly close to the rock and roll songs that follow. These include her smash hits Wheel of Fortune
Wheel of Fortune (song)
"Wheel of Fortune" is a popular song written by Bennie Benjamin and George David Weiss and published in 1951. It was originally recorded in 1951 for Atlantic Records by The Cardinals. In one of the earliest examples of a major record label covering an independent black hit, Capitol recreated The...
(her biggest hit, number one for 10 weeks), Side by Side, The Man Upstairs, and Rock and Roll Waltz. One of her biggest hits was her version of The Man with the Bag, a Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
song, which is heard ubiquitously every holiday season in stores, restaurants, and on the radio.
As the 1950s drew to a close, Kay Starr's popularity began to decline. She appeared in such television series as NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's Club Oasis
Club Oasis
Club Oasis is a 24-episode half-hour comedy-variety show, set in a chic simulated nightclub, which appeared on NBC in the 1957–1958 television season. The series alternated with The Polly Bergen Show in the 9 p.m. EST time slot on Saturday evenings...
, mostly associated with the bandleader Spike Jones
Spike Jones
Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and other Warner Brothers cartoon characters, performed a drunken, hiccuping verse for 1942's "Clink! Clink! Another Drink"...
. However, Starr recorded several albums, including Movin’ (1959), an up-tempo jazz album. Others included Losers, Weepers… (1960) and I Cry By Night (1962) in the jazz/blues genre, as well as a country album entitled Just Plain Country (1962).
After departing from Capitol Records for a second time in 1966, Starr continued touring concert venues in the US and the UK. She also recorded several jazz and country albums on small independent labels, including a 1968 album with Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
, and Back To The Roots (1975). In the late 1980s she was featured in the revue 3 Girls with Helen O'Connell
Helen O'Connell
Helen O'Connell was an American singer, actress, and dancer.Born in Lima, Ohio, O'Connell joined the Jimmy Dorsey band in 1939 and achieved her best selling records in the early 1940s with "Green Eyes", "Amapola," "Tangerine" and "Yours"...
and Margaret Whiting
Margaret Whiting
Margaret Whiting was a singer of American popular music and country music who first made her reputation during the 1940s and 1950s.-Youth:...
, and in 1993 she toured the United Kingdom as part of Pat Boone
Pat Boone
Charles Eugene "Pat" Boone is an American singer, actor and writer who has been a successful pop singer in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s. He covered black artists' songs and sold more copies than his black counterparts...
’s April Love Tour. Most recently her first "live" album, Live At Freddy's, was released in 1997. Kay Starr performs Blue and Sentimental with Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz....
on his 2001 album Playin' with My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues.
In 2006 a remix by Stuhr
Stuhr
Stuhr is a municipality in the district of Diepholz, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated approx. 7 km southwest of Bremen....
of Starr's vocal of the classic I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm
I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm
"I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" is a popular song written in 1937 by Irving Berlin. It was introduced in On the Avenue by Dick Powell and Alice Faye. Les Brown's instrumental version, arranged by Skip Martin and recorded in 1946 as Columbia #38324, became a million-seller and Billboard top ten...
was used in a commercial for Telus
TELUS
Telus is a national telecommunications company in Canada that provides a wide range of telecommunications products and services including internet access, voice, entertainment, video, and satellite television. The company is based in Burnaby, British Columbia, part of Greater Vancouver...
.
As of 2007 she resides in Bel Air, California; married six times, she has a daughter and a grandchild.
Starr was one of the first female artists to perform country western swing music. As of 2010 she is still performing.
Chart hits
| Year | Single | Chart positions | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday... |
US AC Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks The Adult Contemporary chart is a weekly chart published in Billboard magazine that lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary and "lite-pop" radio stations in the United States... |
US Country Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales... |
UK UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ... |
|||
| 1948 | "You Were Only Foolin' (While I Was Falling in Love)" | 16 | ||||
| 1949 | "So Tired" | 7 | ||||
| "How It Lies, How It Lies, How It Lies" | 28 | |||||
| 1950 | "Hoop-de-Doo" | 2 | ||||
| "Bonaparte's Retreat Bonaparte's Retreat (Pee Wee King song) "Bonaparte's Retreat" is the title of a song written by American country music artist Pee Wee King. Various versions of the melody themes exist as traditional fiddle tunes dating back to before the turn of the 20th Century, and probably well before that. King's version was released as a single in... " |
4 | |||||
| "Mississippi" | 18 | |||||
| "I'll Never Be Free" (w/ Tennessee Ernie Ford Tennessee Ernie Ford Ernest Jennings Ford , better known as Tennessee Ernie Ford, was an American recording artist and television host who enjoyed success in the country and Western, pop, and gospel musical genres... ) |
3 | 2 | ||||
| "Ain't Nobody's Business But My Own"(w/ Tennessee Ernie Ford Tennessee Ernie Ford Ernest Jennings Ford , better known as Tennessee Ernie Ford, was an American recording artist and television host who enjoyed success in the country and Western, pop, and gospel musical genres... ) |
22 | 5 | ||||
| "Oh! Babe" | 7 | |||||
| 1951 | "Ocean of Tears" (w/ Tennessee Ernie Ford Tennessee Ernie Ford Ernest Jennings Ford , better known as Tennessee Ernie Ford, was an American recording artist and television host who enjoyed success in the country and Western, pop, and gospel musical genres... ) |
15 | ||||
| "You're My Sugar"(w/ Tennessee Ernie Ford Tennessee Ernie Ford Ernest Jennings Ford , better known as Tennessee Ernie Ford, was an American recording artist and television host who enjoyed success in the country and Western, pop, and gospel musical genres... ) |
22 | |||||
| "Come On-A My House Come on-a My House "Come on-a My House" is a song performed by Rosemary Clooney on her album Come On-A My House, released on June 6, 1951. The song was written by Ross Bagdasarian and noted Armenian American writer William Saroyan in the summer of 1939 but did not become a hit until the release of Clooney's recording... " |
8 | |||||
| "Angry" | 26 | |||||
| 1952 | "Wheel of Fortune Wheel of Fortune (song) "Wheel of Fortune" is a popular song written by Bennie Benjamin and George David Weiss and published in 1951. It was originally recorded in 1951 for Atlantic Records by The Cardinals. In one of the earliest examples of a major record label covering an independent black hit, Capitol recreated The... "(gold record) |
1 | ||||
| "I Waited a Little Too Long" | 20 | |||||
| "Kay's Lament" (w/ The Lancers) | 18 | |||||
| "Fool, Fool, Fool" (w/ The Lancers) | 13 | |||||
| "Comes A-Long A-Love Comes A-Long A-Love "Comes A-Long A-Love" is a hit single for American singer Kay Starr. The song was released in 1952 and was written by the former Tin Pan Alley songwriter Al Sherman. This was the last hit song Sherman would write, handing the reins over to his sons, Bob and Dick Sherman who were just beginning... " |
9 | 1 | ||||
| "Three Letters" | 22 | |||||
| 1953 | "Side by Side" | 3 | 7 | |||
| "Half A Photograph Half a Photograph "Half a Photograph" is a popular song.The music was written by Harold Stanley, the lyrics by Bob Russell. The song was published in 1952 .... " |
7 | |||||
| "Allez-Vous-En Allez-Vous-En "Allez-Vous-En" is a popular song. It was written by Cole Porter and was published in 1953.The song was featured in the musical Can-Can.A recording by Kay Starr was the biggest hit. This recording was released by Capitol Records as catalog number 2464. It first reached the Billboard magazine Best... " |
11 | |||||
| "When My Dreamboat Comes Home" | 18 | |||||
| "Swamp Fire" | 30 | |||||
| "Changing Partners Changing Partners Not to be confused with the song of the same name by Irving Berlin."Changing Partners" is a pop song with music by Larry Coleman and lyrics by Joe Darion. It was published in 1953.The best-known recording was made by Patti Page... " |
7 | 4 | ||||
| 1954 | "The Man Upstairs" | 7 | ||||
| "If You Love Me (Really Love Me)" | 4 | |||||
| "Am I A Toy Or A Treasure Am I A Toy Or A Treasure Am I A Toy Or A Treasure is a popular song written by Arthur Altman, Louis C. Singer and Irving Taylor.The best-selling version of the song was recorded by Kay Starr in 1954. It reached number 17 in the UK charts in October 1954, and number 74 in the annual chart for that year.... " |
22 | 17 | ||||
| "Fortune in Dreams" | 17 | |||||
| 1955 | "Good and Lonesome" | 17 | ||||
| 1956 | "The Rock And Roll Waltz"(gold record) | 1 | 1 | |||
| "I've Changed My Mind A Thousand Times" | 73 | |||||
| "Second Fiddle Second Fiddle Second Fiddle is a term that refers to something that plays a secondary role in support of something that plays a more major or leading role.Second Fiddle may also refer to:* Second Fiddle * Second Fiddle... " |
40 | |||||
| "Love Ain't Right" | 89 | |||||
| "Things I Never Had" | 89 | |||||
| "The Good Book" | 89 | |||||
| 1957 | "Jamie Boy" | 54 | ||||
| "A Little Loneliness" | 73 | |||||
| "My Heart Reminds Me" | 9 | |||||
| 1961 | "Foolin' Around" | 49 | ||||
| "I'll Never Be Free"(re-recording-solo) | 94 | |||||
| 1962 | "Four Walls" | 92 | ||||
| 1965 | "Never Dreamed I Could Love Somebody New" | 23 | ||||
| 1966 | "Tears and Heartaches" | 19 | ||||
| "Old Records" | 26 | |||||
| 1965 | "When the Lights Go On Again (All Over the World)" | 24 | ||||
External links
- The Kay Starr homepage
- KayStarr.net
- Lush Lives (Ladies of Jazz) site
- MusicMatch Guide site
- Biography of Kay Starr (in SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
) - British charts
- The Iceberg site
- Songbird of the Month site
- Kay Starr discography
- A biography
- Kay Starr interview on KUOW 94.9 (NPR) Seattle, 2006