Partner Lottie Tyler
Queer Places:
287 Edgecombe Ave, New York, NY 10031
133 W 138th St, New York, NY 10030
Ferncliff Cemetery, 280 Secor Rd, Hartsdale, NY 10530, Stati Uniti
Alberta
Hunter (April 1, 1895 – October 17, 1984)[1][2][3]
was an American jazz singer and songwriter who had a successful career from
the early 1920s to the late 1950s, and then stopped performing.[4]
After twenty years of working as a nurse, in 1977 Hunter successfully resumed
her popular singing career until her death.[5]
In 1919, Hunter married Willard Saxby Townsend, a former soldier[21] who later became a labor leader for baggage handlers via the International Brotherhood of Red Caps, was short-lived.[5][22][23] They separated within months, as Hunter did not want to quit her career. They were divorced in 1923.[24]
Hunter was a lesbian but kept her sexuality relatively private.[24] In August 1927, she sailed for France, accompanied by Lottie Tyler, the niece of the well-known comedian Bert Williams. Hunter and Tyler had met in Chicago a few years earlier. Their relationship lasted until Tyler's death, many years later.[25]
Hunter is buried[26] in the Ferncliff Cemetery and Mausoleum in Hartsdale, Westchester County, New York (Elmwood section, plot 1411), the location of many celebrity graves.[27][28]
Hunter's life was documented in Alberta Hunter: My Castle's Rockin' (1988 TV movie), a documentary written by Chris Albertson and narrated by the pianist Billy Taylor, and in Cookin' at the Cookery, a biographical musical by Marion J. Caffey, which has toured the United States in recent years with Ernestine Jackson as Hunter.
Hunter was inducted to the Blues Hall of Fame in 2011 and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2015.[29] Hunter's comeback album, Amtrak Blues, was honored by the Blues Hall of Fame in 2009.[30]
My published books:
