By David Dary
For The Transcript
During the middle 20th century, the name Kay Starr was well-known in Oklahoma. From the late 1930s into the late 1960s she one of the best signers in the nation. Oklahomans were proud to claim her.
Kay Starr was born Katherine LaVerne Starks on July 21, 1922 in Dougherty located along the Washita River in the Chickasaw Nation in Tishomingo County. Her father was Harry Starks a full- blooded Iroquois Indian. Her mother Annie was Irish.
When she was three years old, her parents moved to Dallas where her father installed sprinkler systems in buildings. During the depression, her mother raised chickens in a hen house behind their home.
It was in Dallas that Katherine began singing at the age of nine to the chickens as they sat on their roosts. Her parents paid little attention to their daughter’s singing until an aunt recognized her talent. The aunt suggested that her mother enter Katherine in a weekly talent contest on WRR radio in Dallas. Her mother entered
Katherine and she won with the song “Now’s The Time To Fall In Love.” She returned each week and continued to win until WRR radio gave her a three day a week 15-minute program on the station. She received three dollars for each program. Katherine sang popular songs and country music. She received sacks of fan mail.
Three months after she started her radio program, her parents moved to Memphis, Tennessee. Katherine soon found work singing on “Starr Time” broadcast by WREC radio. She also appeared on the station’s “Saturday Night Jamboree.” During this time that Katherine took the name Kay Starr because fan mail often misspelled her name.
Her first big break came in 1937 when Joe Vinuti and his band arrived in Memphis to play at the Peabody Hotel. Vinuti’s contract called for a female vocalist with his band. Hearing Kay Starr on the Memphis radio station, he was impressed and with her parents’ permission hired her. She was so successful that she toured with the band the rest of the summer and during the next two summers
when she was not in school. Because she was a teenager her mother accompanied her with the band.
During the summer of 1939, Joe Venuti pitched her talents to Bob Crosby’s orchestra. It needed a female vocalist. She got the job and began appearing on the Camel Caravan program with Crosby’s group. In 1939, Kay joined the Glenn Miller orchestra for two weeks replacing ailing Marion Hutton. Kay and her mother then returned to Memphis where Kay graduated from high school in 1940. She then rejoined Joe Vinuti’s orchestra in California.
When World War II began the draft forced Vuniti to break up his band. Kay found a job with Wingy Manone’s New Orleans Jazz Band but was hired away by Charlie Barnet’s band in 1943 to replace Lena Horne. With Barnet’s band she recorded many records that were distributed to the U.S. Armed Forces around the world. She also made five records on the Decca label with Barnet and his band.
One of the records,“Share Croppin’ Blues,” was very successful and brought her new recognition.
Kay’s career with the Charlie Barnet band ended suddenly when she caught pneumonia. She lost her voice. Instead of seeking surgery, she stopped speaking for six months in hopes her voice would return. It did, but Kay’s voice was deeper and huskier. Her new voice became her trademark.
Moving to Los Angeles, she began a career as a solo performer. Already well known, she had no difficulty finding work in night clubs. She also was invited to sing two songs on Capitol Records’s all-star “Volumes of Jazz” series in 1945.
In 1947, Capital Records signed her to a contract. Her song “I’m the Lonesomest Gal in Town” was well received. Enjoying even greater success was “So Tired,” her first top ten hit in early 1949. In 1950, she recorded Perry Como’s polka “Hoop-Dee-Doo,” which climbed to number two on the charts.
When she made a return visit to her hometown of Dougherty, she heard Pee Wee King’s fiddle tune “Bonaparte’s Retreat.” She fell in love with the simple melody. She wrote words to the song, recorded it at Capitol, and it became a million dollar best seller.
She then recorded other songs including a duet with popular country singer “Tennessee” Ernie Ford. Early in 1952, she recorded “Wheel of Fortune.” The song became an overnight hit and earned her another gold record.
During the next two years, Kay recorded many more single records in different genres – jazz, country, popular, spirituals, Broadway tunes and rhythm and blues. By 1954, she had logged more than two dozen top forty successes. After signing with RCA, she had another gold record with “The Rock And Roll Waltz”in 1956. Although she became the first female vocalist with a top hit in the “Rock and Roll” era, her popularity as a recording star began fading with the advent of “Rock and Roll.”
During the 1960s she turned did more solo concerts in the U.S. and England including many performances in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada. By the 1970s – she was in her 50s — she cut back on her performances but occasionally did concerts and sang in nightclubs.
She married six times and has a daughter and grandchild. At last report the girl from Dougherty, now 85, was living in Bel Air, California.
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