Ketty Lester "Love Letters"

Ketty Lester

Another beautiful day in Bahrain

Hello Jazzlovers,

My unpacking has been very slow by choice, due to making my decision to lighten my load. Some of the work is mindless, on the other hand, some of it is like a trip down memory lane. I have only loved Intimately 5 people in my life and I have been finding little things from each of them,(smile) and thinking of each of them, I have caught myself writing mental love letters to them. The interesting thing about these love letters is that the focus is on the things that brought us together rather than the things that tore us apart ( it is so good getting emotions out of the way) I did remain friends with them, except for the last one.( but that is a blog all by it's self.....)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4aTLurY3gw


This song "Love Letters" kept running through my head and I caught myself singing it under my breath.I had not thought of this song in years!! Some of you might remember Ketty Lester as Helen Grant on "Days Of Our Lives in the 1970, but I remember her from this song and my stepmother remembered her music. I found this album in the Woolworth's bargin bin years ago while I was in university and played it over and over although I have not listened to it in years it remains part of my favorites in music.. Here is a 2002 live version...Love Letters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuZvb51Xwjw


Trivia Days of Our Lives had the first interracial kiss on a Soap Opera...Ketty Lester was the daughter of a farmer, she was born in Hope, Arkansas August 16, 1934 , one of a family of 15 children, and first sang in her church and school choirs. She won a scholarship to study music at San Francisco State College, and in the early 1950s began performing under the name Ketty Lester in the city's Purple Onion club. She later appeared as a contestant on the game show You Bet Your Life, and toured Europe as a singer with Cab Calloway's orchestra
Here is one I remember from 1965..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDtM0_zEmPY&feature=related

Ketty Lester gave up singing commercially, and turned to acting. She was reportedly offered the role eventually taken by Diahann Carroll in the 1968 TV series Julia, and appeared in a variety of movies including Up Tight! (1968), Blacula (1972), and Uptown Saturday Night (1974). She established herself as a television actress in the 1970s and 1980s, playing the roles of 'Helen Grant' in the soap opera, Days of our Lives from 1975 to 1977, and 'Hester-Sue Terhune' on the NBC television series Little House on the Prairie from 1978 to 1983, as well as making short appearances in many other series. But for me I loved her music.. "Here is Deep Purple"...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50_5i19hrCs&feature=related


Music has always played an important place in my life, because Music knows how I feel...Living in the now makes the past so clear. When looking back at ramicications of past actions are viewed without emotional baggage it is amazing what you see....

Well jazzlover in signing off on a love letter I think it very fitting to end with Ketty Leaster 1962 recording of "P.S. I Love You"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61n-NoYKEGE&feature=related


Well Jazzlover until Next time,

Keep the beat.....

Oh one more!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfa5uCjpouA&feature=related


DWJazzLover

Lena Horne 30 June 1917- 9 May 2010

The Lady was born 30 June 1917 Left us 9 May 2010


The New York Times Obituary

Lena Horne, who was the first black performer to be signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio and who went on to achieve international fame as a singer, died on Sunday night at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital in New York. She was 92 and lived in Manhattan. Her death was announced by her son-in-law, Kevin Buckley.

Ms. Horne might have become a major movie star, but she was born 50 years too early, and languished at MGM in the 1940s because of the color of her skin, although she was so light-skinned that, when she was a child, other black children had taunted her, accusing her of having a “white daddy.” Ms. Horne was stuffed into one “all-star” musical after another — “Thousands Cheer” (1943), “Broadway Rhythm” (1944), “Two Girls and a Sailor” (1944), “Ziegfeld Follies” (1946), “Words and Music” (1948) — to sing a song or two that could easily be snipped from the movie when it played in the South, where the idea of an African-American performer in anything but a subservient role in a movie with an otherwise all-white cast was unthinkable.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMf0Z7EPdLo
 
 
I have always been a fan of Lena Horne one of my favorite moments in life was the night I took my Mother to see Lena Horne at the Fairmount hotel in San francisco in 1979, it was a magical night she will be missed...If you don't have her CD "The Lady and Her Music" You are missing something wonderful..
 
Until Next time Jazzlovers.
 
Ms.Lena Horne
 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCG3kJtQBKo
 
 
DW Jazzlover