Julia Lee (musician)

Lee had attended Attucks Elementary School, and Lincoln High (graduated in 1917). Lee's initial musical training occurred in the family; she got her piano at the age of 10 and had gifted ragtime pianists like Charlie Watts and Scrap Harris as her tutors.[4] Lee continued her education with formal music studies at the Western University, a historically black college in Quindaro, Kansas.[4]

While studying, still in her early teens, Julia was a vocalist with a local band. (Walter Page was playing the string bass there). She started a 15-year period of working together with her brother, George E. Lee, Jr., in 1918, when they had formed a trio[4] (with a hired drummer) upon George's discharge from the Army[6] (where he played the piano and saxophone in a band).[4]

In the 1920s George formed his Novelty Singing Orchestra, the second most prominent band in Kansas City (after Bennie Moten's one).[7] The band, whose name possibly reflected the Novelty Club it was playing at, not the genre,[8] was active through the early 1930s, when Charlie Parker did a brief stint there. Lee was singing and playing piano in this orchestra.[7] Julia's first known recording is with the Merritt Records label in 1927, where she played piano in George's orchestra.[8] (It is possible that two records of Julia were made in 1923 in Chicago by OKeh, but never released.)[6] This recording did nothing to advance Julia's career. Her first success came with a November 1929 recording at Brunswick Records with Jesse Stone as pianist and arranger for the Novelty Singing Orchestra.[6] Julia sang "He’s Tall Dark and Handsome" and "Won’t You Come over to My House" in her sexy, coquettish voice and played piano with flamboyancy. George briefly merged his band with Moten's in 1932 (Julia at this time shared the piano duties with Count Basie), but re-formed it on its own in 1933, with Julia and George parting ways soon thereafter.[9]

In 1934, during the Great Depression, Julia, who disliked touring after getting into a major car crash in 1930,[10] started performing at Milton's Tap Room, a then-new white nightclub, and stayed there until 1950, with only brief appearances in Chicago at Offbeat Club, Silver Frolics, Downbeat Club,[11] and performances in New York at Apollo Theater (May 1948), Los Angeles (Million Dollar Theater, September 1948).[12]

Dave Dexter Jr., who became familiar with Julia's talent while living in Kansas City, joined Capitol Records soon after its inception in 1942, and on November 1, 1944 supervised the first Lee's record with this label at Vic Damon's studio in Kansas City (Julia sang the remakes of "Come on over to My House" and "Trouble in Mind").[13] The Capitol recordings did not catch on initially, and Lee moved on to H. S. (Bert) Somson's short-lived Premier label with a few songs, the most notable being the "Lotus Blossom" (also known as "Marijuana").[14]

Summer of 1946 saw Lee's Capitol recordings of 1944 becoming very popular among the DJs, so in August Dexter signed her for Capitol and brought her to Hollywood (on the way she and her drummer Samuel "Baby" Lovett wrote "Gotta Gimme Whatcha Got") for the first Capital recording credited to "Julia Lee and Her Boy Friends". [14] The session musicians included, at different times, the "top-flight"[14] talent: Jay McShann, Vic Dickenson, Benny Carter, Red Norvo, Nappy Lamare, Red Nichols, and Jack Marshall.[1]

The November 1947 recording session at Capitol generated new popularity with hits like "King Size Papa" (No. 1 R&B for 9 weeks, 1948) and "I Didn't Like It the First Time (The Spinach Song)." (This is when Lee's manager, Johnny Tumino, booked her for gigs in New York and Los Angeles.) Julia sang "King Size Papa" at a White House Correspondents' Association dinner on March 5, 1949 before President Truman.[15]

For Christmas of 1948, Capitol released "Christmas Spirits" (with its holiday depression theme and risqué "Santa ... I could go for your long [pause] whiskers." The song peaked at #16 in the R&B list in January 1949).[12] Lee's last hit was "You Ain't Got It No More" (#9 in November 1949),[16] subsequent recording sessions that lasted into early 1950s failed to achieve success or show development.[17] "Julia remained a hometown girl."[16] There are multiple explanations of this, from criminal connections of Milton Morris causing lack of out-of-town performances, to Lee's dislike of travel (she once said that she could only travel if she "can keep one foot on the ground"), to her being just a consistently good singer, bound to eventually start repeating herself, to lack of desire to go the distance (she once stated "If you are not happy, there is no percentage in the big money").[18] Dave Dexter said that if Lee were able to get on records sooner, she would have turned into one of the most popular American singers (Dexter produced both Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra):[19] "How much more effective might she have been had she recorded as a young woman."[20]

Lee's last recording session with Capitol yielded "Goin' to Chicago Blues"[17] (1952). Later records were with smaller labels: Damon Records (two singles, with more material possibly lost after Vic Damon's death), and Foremost in 1957.[21]

Julia continued to sing (in Cuban Room in Kansas City), and, in summer of 1955, made an appearance in "The Delinquents", a film by then little-known Robert Altman. [17]

Lee had married Frank Duncan, a star catcher and manager of the Negro National League's Kansas City Monarchs, also a native of Kansas City, in 1919.[6] Julia frequently performed in all-white nightclubs, and Duncan had to sit with the orchestra, pretending to be a musician, in order to see her performing there.[22] The marriage lasted for 9 years;[6] the only son, pitcher Frank Duncan III, played alongside his father in 1941, and they are thought to have been the first father-son battery in professional baseball history.[23]

After a divorce from Duncan, Lee married Johnny Thomas around 1927. This marriage lasted two years. Julia had no more kids.[24]

According to Dave Dexter Jr., he coined the Lee's band name "Her Boy Friends" after a succession of men that won Julia's affections and took her money.[14]

Julia Lee died in Kansas City in her home during an afternoon nap, on December 8, 1958,[25] at the age of 56, from a heart attack.[1][2] Her passing did not attract much attention, being somewhat eclipsed by the deaths of Tommy Dorsey and Art Tatum.[25]

Brunswick Records with George Lee' Novelty Singling Orchestra (recorded in November 1929, re-released in 1930 with Julia's name):[26]

• "He's Tall, Dark and Handsome"
• "Won't You Come Over to My House"

Capitol Records (November 1):[14]

• "Come on Over To My House"
• "Trouble in Mind"

Premier Records:[14]

• "Lotus Blossom"

Capitol Records (August):[27]

• "Gotta Gimme Whatcha Got" (#3 R&B in 1946)
• "Lies"
• "When a Woman Loves a Man"
• "Have You Ever Been Lonely"
• "Oh! Marie"
• "I'll get along somehow" (#5 R&B in May 1947)
• "Snatch and Grab It" (#1 R&B in 1947)

Capitol Records (November):[27]

• "Charmaine"
• "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles"
• "Pagan Love Song"
• "King Size Papa"
• "Take It or Leave It"
• "That's What I Like"
• "I Didn't Like It the First Time"
• "Tell Me Daddy"

Capitol Records:[12]

• "Christmas Spirits" (#16 R&B in January 1949)

Capitol Records:

• "Tonight's the Night"
• "My Man Stands Out"
• "Do You Want It?"
• "Don't Come Too Soon" (Billboard's reaction: "Lyrics is certainly too blue for airing, and juke ops ... should listen carefully before installing")
• "Don't Save It Too Long"
• "It Comes in Like a Lion (and It Goes Out Like a Lamb)" (Capitol decided not to release it)
• "You Ain't Got It No More" (#9 R&B in November 1949)

Capitol Records:

• "Going To Chicago Blues"[17]
• "Last Call For Alcohol"

Damon Records:

• "Scat You Cats"
• "I Can't See How"

Foremost Records:

• "Bop and Rock Lullaby"[25]
• "King Size Papa"[25]
• "Saturday Night"