One of my all-time favourite singers had passed away recently so today we are going to talk about wonderful Kay Starr who was one of the last living stars of long gone big band era. She had outlived most of the colleagues, including both Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, which is interesting as Starr herself had solid background in both swing and rock music. To describe her music as either swing or rock is just simplification, because she happened to be a perfectly versatile singer in those particular times - Starr could sing absolutely anything with great conviction and if she started today, she would have found some way to fit that powerful voice in modern trends. As it happened, she recorded in the years between 1939 and (roughly) 1970s, so her career followed changes in popular music as it was back than.
Kay Starr belongs to that generation of singers who did not rely on smoke bombs, dancers, choreography or special effects - it might sound completely strange to young audience today, but there was a time when singers actually came on stage and simply stood still in front of microphone (occasionally snapping fingers in rhythm) projecting emotions trough voice as the only true instrument on disposal. Guys were crooners (ballad singers) and girls were songbirds, usually added as extra attraction to already famous big bands who played dances - neither were terribly important, as the main stars were instrumentalists or band leaders, until at certain point people like Sinatra eclipsed the fame of bands and (gasp!) went solo, which started slow decline of big bands - they will go forever, but starting with Sinatra in 1940s, singers would move to radio and become phenomenon in their own right. Without exception, the 1930s and 1940s singers started in big bands, as extra cameo on some popular songs and ask anybody from Frank Sinatra, Mel Tormé, Tony Bennett, Anita O'Day, Doris Day or even Ella Fitzgerald, they all had to go trough same apprenticeship with gruelling touring, living on the buses and trying to appear elegant on stage. This illusion of glamour was constantly attracting new talents who inevitably started with swing and jazz (predominant genres of popular music back than) but eventually they might have explored other possibilities or even (as in case of Doris Day) successfully branch out into movies.
Highly unusual, since she was so versatile, Kay Starr was everything at once: she was basically Oklahoma gal (in her own description,"hillbilly singer", which is an old fashioned term for a country singer) who grew up with jazz and swing, so she was equally convincing in either of these genres. Along the way, she also loved, recorded and performed gospel and her 1959. album "I Hear a word" might be my top choice, but her greatest success and fame came in neither of these genres - her everlasting legend is based on a string of 1950s pop hits that combined little bit of everything. And I mean everything. Because Starr attacked every song with the same gusto, passion and energy, producers would throw anything at her - waltzes, polkas, early rock, country, duets, ballads, swing, you name it, she recorded it. I doubt that she honestly liked it, but she always gave 100% commitment and that powerful, lusty alto voice just boomed trough the radio waves - not unlike Frankie Laine or young Tony Bennett, Starr had that wonderful, heroic bravado that sounded highly convincing, energetic and winsome, no matter what kind of song she sang.
If pressed to describe Kay Starr as a singer I would say that stylistically, she stands somewhere between bluesy Dinah Washington and country torch of Patsy Cline. The best of both of them was somehow distilled in her singing style, therefore you'll find Starr's recording full of swagger and delightful melodrama. She was highly regarded amongst critics and her fellow colleagues, being named favourite singer by both Billie Holiday and Édith Piaf. In its heyday, it was a truly powerhouse voice, strong, booming and commanding, no matter what music genre she worked in. Jazz critic Will Friedwald praises Starr in his 1996. book "Jazz singing" and points how successful excursions in pop music might have alienated portion of jazz purists who otherwise idolised singers like Nat King Cole and Kay Starr, since they both started with jazz and moved onto wider audiences - Cole eventually became the world's foremost ballad singer and gradually stopped playing piano, while Starr arguably replaced her big band roots with pop hits.
Personally, I had no problems with Kay Starr's versatility and its precisely this wide range of genres that makes her discography such joyous adventure - I had heard her unusually strong, passionate voice for the first time back in 1995 on some 1950s female singers compilation called "Songbirds" where she was lumped together with names from the same generation, like Dinah Shore - now, Shore might have been a big deal decades ago but her vocal styling sounds hopelessly out of date today, same could be said for majority of singers from that time. Than Kay Starr comes along and there is suddenly a huge difference, because she had such a volcanic presence, remarkably strong and powerful voice than all the other ladies immediately appear just timid and somehow smaller when compared with her. Her 1950s hits are numerous and well-known but myself I prefer anything that came before and after the golden hits era, because they just might be more interesting in describing where Starr's true heart was: the earliest recordings from 1930s and 1940s are joy because they capture young, chirping singer singing her little heart out on standards like "If I Could Be With You (One Hour Tonight)",
"What A Diff'rence A Day Made", "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall" and "Stormy Weather" while backed with musicians like Joe Venuti, Glenn Miller, Wingy Manone and Charlie Barnet. There is also a wonderful 1940s compilation that collects obscure radio recordings like "Tell Me How Long The Train's Been Gone", "Down Among The Sheltering Palms", "Mama Goes Where Papa Goes" and even "The Hucklebuck" that precede rock craze that would eventually rule charts in the next decade. When you listen to Starr's studio albums from 1950s onwards, its interesting to note they were always peppered with jazz standards, so even though she went multi-platinum with hit singles, there was always a place for something like "Rockin Chair", "Georgia On My Mind" or truly out-of-this world swaggering take on Duke Ellington's famous "Night Train" so I don't understand where the criticism about "going commercial" comes from.
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