April 1 - Alberta Hunter (The Musical Birthday Series, 3rd Annual Cycle)

Previous posts for April 1st may be found here: Sergei Rachmaninoff (2019) and F. Melius Christiansen (2020).

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Alberta Hunter (1 April 1895 – 17 October 1984) was an American jazz and blues singer and songwriter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hunter Gatherer

 

In 1978, Hunter was offered a limited engagement in Greenwich Village, where a two-week gig proved a smash when people started flocking into The Cookery. Two weeks stretched into an open-ended engagement that made Alberta Hunter a star reborn and a fixture of New York nightlife. --adapted from Women in Jazz: Alberta Hunter

After fifty years on stage,

Alberta Hunter, at an age

When many people seek retirement

Went to school, met the requirement,

And started working as a nurse.

(Hence the subject of this verse.)

Nursing as a second career

Satisfied her year by year.

She (re-)retired, and at four score

She went on stage to sing some more.

A new Alberta Hunter cult

Was the unforeseen result.

 

 

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