Lucky Millinder
Encyclopedia
Lucius Venable "Lucky" Millinder (August 8, 1910 – September 28, 1966) was an American
rhythm and blues
and swing bandleader
. Although he could not read or write music, did not play an instrument and rarely sang, his showmanship and musical taste made his bands successful. His group was said to have been the greatest big band to play rhythm and blues, and gave a break to a number of influential musicians at the dawn of the rock and roll
era. He is a 1986 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame
.
, United States
and was raised in Chicago
, Illinois
. In the 1920s he worked in clubs, ballrooms, and theatres in Chicago as a master of ceremonies and dancer. He first fronted a band in 1931 for an RKO theater tour, and in 1932 took over leadership of Doc Crawford's orchestra in Harlem
, New York City
, as well as freelancing elsewhere.
In 1933, he took a band to Europe, playing residencies in Monte Carlo
and Paris
. He returned to New York to take over leadership of the Mills Blue Rhythm Band
, which included Henry "Red" Allen, Charlie Shavers
, Harry "Sweets" Edison and J.C. Higginbotham, and which had a regular slot at The Cotton Club. Around this time he also discovered singer and guitarist Rosetta Tharpe, with whom he performed for many years and first recorded with on "Trouble In Mind" in 1941.
's group, and by 1940 had formed a completely new orchestra, which included Doggett and drummer "Panama" Francis. He established a residency at New York's Savoy Ballroom, and won a contract with Decca Records
. Dizzy Gillespie
was the band’s trumpeter for a while, and featured on Millinder's first charted hit, "When The Lights Go On Again (All Over The World)", which reached # 1 on the R&B chart and # 14 on the pop chart in 1942. The follow-up records "Apollo Jump" and "Sweet Slumber" were also big hits, with vocals by Trevor Bacon.
By the mid-1940s the band was drifting towards what would be known as rhythm and blues
. Other band members around this time included saxophonists Bull Moose Jackson
, Tab Smith
and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, and pianist “Sir” Charles Thompson
. In 1944 Millinder recruited singer Wynonie Harris
, and their recording together of "Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well" became the group’s biggest hit in 1945, staying at #1 on the R&B chart for eight weeks and also crossing over to reach #7 on the US pop chart. After Harris left for a solo career, Millinder followed up with another hit, “Shorty’s Got to Go” on which he took lead vocals. Soon afterwards, Ruth Brown
became the band's singer for a short period before her own solo career took off.
In the late 1940s the band continued to remain popular and toured around all the large R&B auditoriums, although it had few chart
hits
for several years. In 1949 the band left Decca Records and joined first RCA Victor and then King Records
, recording with singers Big John Greer
and Annisteen Allen
. The band’s last big hit was "I’m Waiting Just for You" with Allen in 1951, which reached #2 on the R&B chart and #19 pop.
DJ
as well as continuing to tour with his band, but his style was beginning to fall out of favor and the band went through many personnel changes. In 1954 he took over the leadership of the house band at the Apollo Theater
for a while. He effectively retired from performing around 1955, although his final recordings were in 1960.
He became active in music publishing, and in public relations for a whiskey distillery, before dying from a liver ailment in New York City in September 1966.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
and swing bandleader
Bandleader
A bandleader is the leader of a band of musicians. The term is most commonly, though not exclusively, used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues or rock and roll music....
. Although he could not read or write music, did not play an instrument and rarely sang, his showmanship and musical taste made his bands successful. His group was said to have been the greatest big band to play rhythm and blues, and gave a break to a number of influential musicians at the dawn of the 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...
era. He is a 1986 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame
Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame
The Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame was founded in 1978, and opened a museum on September 18, 1993, with a mission "to foster, encourage, educate, and cultivate a general appreciation of the medium of jazz music as a legitimate, original and distinctive art form indigenous to America...
.
Early career
Millinder was born in Anniston, AlabamaAnniston, Alabama
Anniston is a city in Calhoun County in the state of Alabama, United States.As of the 2000 census, the population of the city is 24,276. According to the 2005 U.S. Census estimates, the city had a population of 23,741...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and was raised in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. In the 1920s he worked in clubs, ballrooms, and theatres in Chicago as a master of ceremonies and dancer. He first fronted a band in 1931 for an RKO theater tour, and in 1932 took over leadership of Doc Crawford's orchestra in Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, as well as freelancing elsewhere.
In 1933, he took a band to Europe, playing residencies in Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....
and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. He returned to New York to take over leadership of the Mills Blue Rhythm Band
Mills Blue Rhythm Band
The Mills Blue Rhythm Band was an American big band of the 1930s.The band was formed in Harlem in 1930, with reedman Bingie Madison the first of its many leaders. It started life as the Coconut Grove Orchestra, changing to Mills Blue Rhythm Band when Irving Mills became its manager in 1931...
, which included Henry "Red" Allen, Charlie Shavers
Charlie Shavers
Charles James Shavers , known as Charlie Shavers, was an American swing era jazz trumpet player who played at one time or another with Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Johnny Dodds, Jimmy Noone, Sidney Bechet, Midge Williams and Billie Holiday...
, Harry "Sweets" Edison and J.C. Higginbotham, and which had a regular slot at The Cotton Club. Around this time he also discovered singer and guitarist Rosetta Tharpe, with whom he performed for many years and first recorded with on "Trouble In Mind" in 1941.
With his own orchestra
In 1938 he teamed up with pianist Bill DoggettBill Doggett
Bill Doggett was an American jazz and rhythm and blues pianist and organist. He is best known for his tracks, "Honky Tonk" and "Hippy Dippy", and variously working with The Ink Spots, Johnny Otis, Wynonie Harris, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Jordan.-Biography:William Ballard Doggett was born in...
's group, and by 1940 had formed a completely new orchestra, which included Doggett and drummer "Panama" Francis. He established a residency at New York's Savoy Ballroom, and won a contract with Decca Records
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
. Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
was the band’s trumpeter for a while, and featured on Millinder's first charted hit, "When The Lights Go On Again (All Over The World)", which reached # 1 on the R&B chart and # 14 on the pop chart in 1942. The follow-up records "Apollo Jump" and "Sweet Slumber" were also big hits, with vocals by Trevor Bacon.
By the mid-1940s the band was drifting towards what would be known as rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
. Other band members around this time included saxophonists Bull Moose Jackson
Bull Moose Jackson
Benjamin Clarence "Bull Moose" Jackson was an American blues and rhythm and blues singer and saxophonist, who was most successful in the late 1940s.-Career:...
, Tab Smith
Tab Smith
Talmadge "Tab" Smith , was an American swing and rhythm and blues alto saxophonist. He is best known for the tracks, "Because Of You" and "Pretend". He variously worked with Count Basie, the Mills Rhythm Boys and Lucky Millinder.-Biography:Smith was born in Kinston, North Carolina, United States...
and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, and pianist “Sir” Charles Thompson
Charles Thompson (jazz)
Charles Phillip Thompson , is an American swing and bebop pianist, organist and arranger.He was a professional pianist from the age of 10. By the age of twelve Thompson was playing private parties with Bennie Moten and his band in Colorado Springs...
. In 1944 Millinder recruited singer Wynonie Harris
Wynonie Harris
Wynonie Harris , born in Omaha, Nebraska, was an American blues shouter and rhythm and blues singer of upbeat songs, featuring humorous, often ribald lyrics. With fifteen Top 10 hits between 1946 and 1952, Harris is generally considered one of rock and roll's forerunners, influencing Elvis Presley...
, and their recording together of "Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well" became the group’s biggest hit in 1945, staying at #1 on the R&B chart for eight weeks and also crossing over to reach #7 on the US pop chart. After Harris left for a solo career, Millinder followed up with another hit, “Shorty’s Got to Go” on which he took lead vocals. Soon afterwards, Ruth Brown
Ruth Brown
Ruth Brown was an American pop and R&B singer-songwriter, record producer, composer and actress, noted for bringing a pop music style to R&B music in a series of hit songs for Atlantic Records in the 1950s, such as "So Long", "Teardrops from My Eyes" and " He Treats Your Daughter Mean".For these...
became the band's singer for a short period before her own solo career took off.
In the late 1940s the band continued to remain popular and toured around all the large R&B auditoriums, although it had few chart
Record chart
A record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....
hits
Hit record
A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...
for several years. In 1949 the band left Decca Records and joined first RCA Victor and then King Records
King Records (USA)
King Records is an American record label, started in 1943 by Syd Nathan and originally headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio.-History:At first it specialized in country music, at the time still known as "hillbilly music." King advertised, "If it's a King, It's a Hillbilly -- If it's a Hillbilly, it's a...
, recording with singers Big John Greer
Big John Greer
Big John Greer was an American blues tenor saxophonist and vocalist, best known for his recordings from 1949 to 1955, which included "Got You On My Mind" and "Bottle It Up And Go."...
and Annisteen Allen
Annisteen Allen
Annisteen Allen, born Ernestine Letitia Allen was an American blues singer....
. The band’s last big hit was "I’m Waiting Just for You" with Allen in 1951, which reached #2 on the R&B chart and #19 pop.
Later years
By 1952 Millinder was working as a radioRadio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
DJ
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
as well as continuing to tour with his band, but his style was beginning to fall out of favor and the band went through many personnel changes. In 1954 he took over the leadership of the house band at the Apollo Theater
Apollo Theater
The Apollo Theater in New York City is one of the most famous, and older, music halls in the United States, and the most famous club associated almost exclusively with Black performers...
for a while. He effectively retired from performing around 1955, although his final recordings were in 1960.
He became active in music publishing, and in public relations for a whiskey distillery, before dying from a liver ailment in New York City in September 1966.