The Chronological Classics: Una Mae Carlisle 1938-1941

Biography

Una Mae Carlisle (1915-1956) was a U.S. popular-music and jazz singer, songwriter, and pianist. Carlisle was born on the 26th December 1915, in Xenia, Ohio, U.S.A.. She was discovered by Fats Waller late in 1932. He invited her to play on his radio show at station WLW in Cincinnati during Christmas week when Una Mae turned seventeen. She was still in High School at the time, and her mother had approved her Christmas vacation in Cincinnati because she was to stay with her elder sister. When her...

Una Mae Carlisle (1915-1956) was a U.S. popular-music and jazz singer, songwriter, and pianist.

Carlisle was born on the 26th December 1915, in Xenia, Ohio, U.S.A.. She was discovered by Fats Waller late in 1932. He invited her to play on his radio show at station WLW in Cincinnati during Christmas week when Una Mae turned seventeen. She was still in High School at the time, and her mother had approved her Christmas vacation in Cincinnati because she was to stay with her elder sister. When her vacation was over, she refused to return home, becoming a professional musician working with Waller at WLW. It has been stated by some sources that she became his mistress. Waller's contract with WLW expired in 1934 and he left Cincinnati for New York.

Carlisle left America in 1936 to tour Europe, reportedly with the revue Blackbirds of 1936, though no record has been found to substantiate her being a member of the cast, and she spent the next three years there, mostly in London and Paris. In London, on the 20th May 1938, she recorded three discs that were released on the Vocalion label, including "Don't Try Your Jive on Me". Her backing band for that session included the West Indian musicians Dave Wilkins (trumpet) and Bertie King (clarinet and tenor sax).

She became highly successful in England, Germany, and France, where she worked at the Boeuf sur le Toit ("The Ox on the Roof"), a cabaret in the Rue du Colisée in Paris. While in Paris in 1939 she was one of two pianists in a combo headed by clarinetist Danny Polo (Danny Polo And His Swing Stars) which recorded four sides for Decca.

She then returned to New York where she undertook several successful engagements and record dates, the first of which was a session with Fats Waller in November 1939 for Bluebird, in which she and Waller combined to sing "I Can't Give You Anything but Love". She began recording on her own for Bluebird in the summer of 1940. She soon had several hits, including "Walkin' by The River" with Benny Carter, "Blitzkrieg Baby" with Lester Young, and "I See a Million People" with Charlie Shavers and John Kirby.

As early as 1938 Carlisle began suffering with mastoid trouble and in 1941 she was hospitalised for several week.

Bluebird dropped her from its roster during the 1942-1944 American Federation of Musicians ban on recording (the "Petrillo Ban"), so she signed with Joe Davis for whom she recorded more than a dozen tracks, one of which was "'Tain't Yours" with trumpeter Ray Nance, who had just left Duke Ellington's band.

In between bouts of ill health she played clubs and hotels and appeared on radio shows, including a week-long salute to Fats Waller on WNEW in New York in February 1945, approximately a year after his death.

Her career kept going into the 1950s when she became involved in films and her own radio and television shows. Her last studio session was for Columbia in New York on the 8th May 1950. Later in 1950 she recorded a few "special product" 78s on RCA Victor, which she is believed to have distributed to disc jockeys to keep her name before the public.

She retired due to her illness in 1954, and died in New York on the 7th November 1956. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.