Lee Wiley

Lee Wiley
Background information
Born (1908-10-09)October 9, 1908
Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, U.S.
Died December 11, 1975(1975-12-11) (aged 67)
New York City
Genres Jazz
Occupation(s) Singer
Instruments Vocals

Lee Wiley (October 9, 1908 – December 11, 1975) was an American jazz singer popular in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.

Biography

Wiley was born in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma.[1] In her early teens, she left home to pursue a singing career with the Leo Reisman band. Her career was interrupted by a fall while horseback riding. She suffered temporary blindness but recovered, and at the age of 19 was back with Reisman again, with whom she recorded three songs: "Take It From Me," "Time On My Hands," and her own composition, "Got the South in My Soul." She sang with Paul Whiteman and later, the Casa Loma Orchestra. A collaboration with composer Victor Young resulted in several songs for which Wiley wrote the lyrics, including "Got the South in My Soul" and "Anytime, Anyday, Anywhere," the latter a rhythm and blues hit in the 1950s.

During the early 1930s, Wiley recorded very little, and many sides were rejected:

(There were multiple takes of many of the unissued sides.)

In 1939, Wiley recorded eight Gershwin songs on 78s with a small group for Liberty Music Shop Records. The set sold well and was followed by 78s dedicated to the music of Cole Porter (1940) and Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart (1940 and 1954), Harold Arlen (1943), and 10" LPs dedicated to the music of Vincent Youmans and Irving Berlin (1951). The players on these recordings included Bunny Berigan, Bud Freeman, Max Kaminsky, Fats Waller, Billy Butterfield, Bobby Hackett, Eddie Condon, Stan Freeman, Cy Walter, and the bandleader Jess Stacy, to whom Wiley was married for a number of years. These influential albums launched the concept of a "songbook" (often featuring lesser-known songs), which was later widely imitated by other singers.

Wiley's career made a resurgence in 1950 with the much admired ten-inch album Night in Manhattan. In 1954, she opened the first Newport Jazz Festival, accompanied by Bobby Hackett. Later in the decade she recorded, West of the Moon (1956) and A Touch of the Blues (1957).

Wiley retired from singing in the early 1960s, acting in a 1963 television film, Something About Lee Wiley, which told her life story. The film stimulated interest in her and she resumed her career, making her last public appearance at a 1972 concert in Carnegie Hall as part of the New York Jazz Festival, where she was enthusiastically received.

Personal life

Wiley married the jazz pianist Jess Stacy in 1943. The couple was described by their friend Deane Kincaide as being as "compatible as two cats, tails tied together, hanging over a clothesline"; they divorced in 1948. Lee's response to Stacy's desire to get a divorce was, "What will Bing Crosby be thinking of you divorcing me?" while Stacy said of Wiley, "They did not burn the last witch at Salem."[2] Wiley married a retired business man, Nat Tischenkel, in 1966.

Wiley died on December 11, 1975 in New York City after being diagnosed with colon cancer earlier that year. She was 67 years old.

Selected discography

References

  1. ↑ Yanow, Scott (2000), Swing, Hal Leonard Corporation, pp. 293–295, ISBN 161774476X
  2. ↑ Coller, D. (1998). Jess Stacy: The Quiet Man of Jazz. G H B Jazz Foundation, 1998. ISBN 978-0-9638890-4-1
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