OPEN POST: Manor Music Monday With Miss Midge Williams!

Welcome, music sloots, to another edition of Manor Music Monday, where we can all jam with music and share it with everyone in the Manor. Better still, at the Manor's "Deez Nuts" after-hours lounge, DJ Li'l Scratch will be spinning tunes from a melodious missy we'll all enjoy. Intrigued? Wanna know who? For that, let's time travel back to the 1930s, shall we? Hold tight. Wheeeeee! Phew, that was fast (I think I hurt my coccyx!). But here we are - and there she is. The lovely and talented Midge Williams.

"Midge whooooooo?" you may ask. I did, too, but she looked so fetching years ago when I saw her on CD covers and in photos that I decided to find out what her deal was.

What I discovered is a largely unheralded jazz singer who really ought to be in every jazz lovers library. Why? Start with her creamy-smooth vocals, which curl flirtatiously around the lyrics in songs like "It All Begins And Ends With You" or "I'm With You Right Or Wrong." Then try her version of "Organ Grinder's Swing" and try, just try, to resist her buoyant delivery. You won't be able to.

If you haven't heard of her before, it might be because her largest audience during her heyday was in jazz clubs in Japan and China, though she also toured extensively in the U.S. This included a lengthy, nationwide gig with Louis Armstrong, though tragically, there are no recordings of them together. She also sang with Ella Fitzgerald, Fats Waller and Glenn Miller, amongst others, in popular venues on the East and West coast, including "Mona's 44," the very first lesbian bar and club to open in San Francisco. I've no idea if Midge was a gayelle, though other gayelles, such as drag king Gladys Bentley, performed at the club regularly. 

What we have for you today is the first disc in a three-disc Midge collection. And we'll have to enjoy what little there is of Midge, because her life was sadly cut short by tuberculosis in 1952. She was only thirty-six years old. Give a listen to her perform "St. Louis Blues" below and you'll want more, I promise. Fun fact: she earned her first recording contract in Japan, so many of her songs were recorded with her performing one version in English, the second in Japanese. 

Wanna hear the rest of Midge’s CD? Of course do, and it's RIGHT HERE. 

What are you listening to this week? DJ Li'l Scratch wants to know.
Till next time...purr, bitches, purr! 🐾

Photo Credits: Swingtime Productions; Getty Images