Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

INTERNATIONAL SWEETHEARTS OF RHYTHM

An all-girl swing band formed in 1937 at Piney Wood Country Life School for poor and black children, founded near Jackson MS by Laurence C. Jones in 1910, who had sent a vocal group on the road in the early 1920s. Piney Wood's band director was Consuela Carter (b 16 April 1902, Haynesville AL; retired from Mississippi education in 1976) who had herself been educated there. The Sweethearts' lineup were mostly black women but some white, oriental, Mexican (hence 'International'). Trumpeter/arranger Edna Williams (Armstread) was hired by Jones from Iowa to lead the band; they toured to raise money for the school, appeared at the Howard Theatre in Washington DC, then at the Apollo in Harlem for a week.

They went off on their own in 1941, fleeing in the school's bus and evading highway patrols across several states, when they learned that some girls would not graduate because they'd been touring with the band, though the money earned had gone to the school. (Jones then formed the Swinging Rays of Rhythm.) Setting up house in Arlington Virginia and rehearsing under Eddie Durham, the 14- to 19-year-olds included Pauline Braddy (tutored on drums by Sid Catlett and Jo Jones), Willie May Wong (saxophone) and 14 others. They were paid half union scale; Durham was disgusted with their backers and left to form his own all-girl band; vocalist-guitarist Anna Mae (Daeden) Winburn (b 13 August 1913, Port Royal TN; d 30 September 1999) was appointed leader: she'd led a male band (once including Charlie Christian) until it was raided by Fletcher Henderson; the new music director was Jesse Stone. New members included trumpeter-vocalist Ernestine 'Tiny' Davis, saxist Vi Burnside in the Lester Young mould. White members of the band tried to pass for black when touring the South, a strange double indignity of being women and white.

Stone left after two years, replaced by Maurice King (later arranger for Gladys Knight, the Detroit Spinners). Their best year was 1945: they played for sell-out crowds at Chicago's Rhumboogie club, played black army camps, made film shorts (including That Man Of Mine with vocalist Ruby Dee), sailed for Europe in July to play service depots on the Continent. Lineup changes led to the band folding in 1948; Winburn re-formed the Sweethearts of Rhythm '50 with her second husband, kept it going five years while raising her family: the band down to an octet finally folded '55. Burnside also led a band in the '50s, and bassist Edna Smith ('Miss Calypso') led a trio, including Sweethearts' pianist Carline Ray (Russell) and Braddy.

Other all-girl bands included those of Russian-born clarinettist Phil Spitalny (had hits in the late 1920s, formed the all-girl band in 1934, d 11 October 1970 aged 79) and Ina Ray Hutton; there was Ivy Benson in UK (d 6 May 1993); the Sweethearts probably played the best music. Talent scouts knew of talented women all over the USA who never got a chance to leave town. (Thanks to D. Antoinette Hardy's book Black Woman In American Bands And Orchestras, Scarecrow Press 1981.)