From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Sun Aug 11, 2002  2:29 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Christine Kittrell

 
CHRISTINE KITTRELL (By Jean-Marc Pezet)

Born Christine Joygena Kittrell, 11 August, 1929, Nashville, Tennessee
Died 19 December 2001, Columbus, Ohio

Christine started singing in a choir and, aged only 11, joined the Jefferson
Street Baptist Band. She started her professional career with the Louis
Brooks' Band in 1951 (saxophonist Louis Brooks was a mainstay of the
local jazz and blues scene back from the 30s, he had played with the
Duke Ellington Orchestra during WWII).
She soon started recording for the Nashville based Tennessee label,
backed by the Louis Brooks band. Her style was a cross between torch
blues and the big jazz singstress such as Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah
Washington she admired a lot. She scored a minor hit with her third disc,
the almost classic "Sittin' Here Drinking". A hot act around Nashville,
the success led her to tour on a larger scale in Louisiana, Arkansas,
Tennessee and California, with current hot artists such as Joe Turner,
Big Maybelle, Ruth Brown and Paul Williams.
In 1953 she switched to the newly formed Republic label where she
recorded with the Guitar Red band from New Orleans (featuring drummer
Charles Connor) and also with the Little Richard band in 1954, with some
success.
In 1955, she relocated to Chicago, and apparently recorded for Chess
(though nothing had ever appeared). She continued touring and recording
for several labels.
During the Viet Nam war, she went to the Far East to entertain the GIs until
1968 when she was badly wounded with a schrapnel. Upon her return, she
quit the music business and worked in a program for delinquent girls in
Ohio.
She had been marred by health problems since then but a last recording
"True Love Untold" appeared in 1998. She died of emphysema in Riverside
Methodist Hospital in Columbus at the age of 72.

Recommended listening:
The Tennessee and Republic recordings are on the "A Shot In The Dark:
Nashville Jumps" 8 CD Box Set Bear Family BCD 15864
(includes a lengthy Christine Kittrell Interview).