From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Tue Oct 29, 2002  6:17 am  - UPDATED 6 JANUARY 2004
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Hadda Brooks
 
HADDA BROOKS

Born Hadda Hopgood, 29 October 1916, Los Angeles, California
Died 22 November 2002, Los Angeles, CA

In the mid- to late '40s, black popular music began to mutate from swing
jazz and boogie-woogie into the sort of rhythm & blues that helped lay the
foundation for rock & roll. Singer and pianist Hadda Brooks was one of the
many figures who was significant in aiding that transition, although she's
largely forgotten today. While her torch song delivery was rooted in the big
band era, her boogie-woogie piano looked forward to jump blues and R&B.
Ironically, the same qualities that made her briefly successful - her elegant
vocals and jazzy arrangements - left her ill-equipped to compete when
harder-driving forms of rhythm & blues, and then early rock & roll, began to
dominate the marketplace in the early '50s.
Brooks got a recording deal through a chance meeting with jukebox operator
Jules Bihari, who was looking to record some boogie-woogie. The L.A.-based
Bihari brothers (Jules and Joe) would become major players in early R&B via
their Modern label. Brooks actually preferred ballads to boogie-woogies, but
worked up her style by listening to Pete Johnson, Albert Ammons, and Meade
Lux Lewis records. Her first record, the pounding "Swingin' the Boogie," was a
sizable regional hit in 1945.
Brooks' first records were instrumental, but by 1946 she was singing as well.
She had a fair amount of success for Modern in the late '40s, reaching the R&B
Top Ten with "Out of the Blue" and her most famous song, "That's My Desire"
(# 4 R&B), which was covered for a big pop hit by Frankie Laine. Her success
on record and her good looks led to some roles in films : Out Of The Blue,
In A Lonely PLace, The Bad And The Beautiful.
Hadda briefly left Modern for an unsuccessful stint with major label London
in 1950. After a similarly unrewarding return to Modern in the early '50s,
and a stint at Okeh (1952-53), she largely withdrew from recording into the
nightclub circuit. For most of the 1960s, in fact, she was based in Australia,
where she hosted her own TV show.
In 1986 she recorded a single for Bobby Mizzell's Kim label : House Of Boogie
Woogie (vocal) / Palm Spring Blues (instr.). Both tracks are on the Bobby
Mizzell CD (Beverly Hills Boogie).
Her profile was boosted in the mid-'90s by her induction into the Rhythm
& Blues Foundation Hall of Fame, and by the inclusion of her recording of
"Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere" in the film The Crossing Guard. At the age
of 79, she signed a new recording contract with Virgin Records and released
a CD, Time Was When, in early 1996.

Recommended listening:
- I've Got News For You (EMD/Virgin). A  2  CD-set of her Modern recordings,
with the vocal tracks on CD 1 (Hadda Sings) and instrumentals on CD 2
(Hadda Swings).
- Jump Back Honey : The Complete Okeh Seesssions (Columbia Legacy CK 65081).
The title song, Hadda's own composition, is the original version of the tune
later
recorded by Gene Vincent as "Jump Back Honey Jump Back".

More info: http://trash.candysweet.com/fibbers/articles/hadda.html