Biography keely smith

Home / Celebrity Biographies / Biography keely smith

Half the people were dancing and the other half were standing around the bandstand. She is no more. after bringing audiences to their feet. Six members of Joe Brown's troupe auditioned, but Smith did not.

That same year she switched to the Reprise label, where Nelson Riddle was her musical director. Smith was the show’s calm counterpoint. After appearing at the House of Blues in Los Angeles in 2005, she went on to perform at Feinstein’s at The Regency in New York. Her devoted mother accompanied her everywhere because she was underage.

Met Louis Prima

When Smith was 15 years old, she and her family went to New York City on vacation during the summer of 1947, a trip she never dreamed would influence her life forever.

Keely recalled, "We lived in a very bad section of Norfolk called Atlantic City, and when I say bad, I mean every thief, every hooker, every anybody that did anything bad that landed up in jail came from this little section of town that I lived in."

She began singing as a child and started her career with Joe Brown's Children's Radio Gang show in Norfolk when she was eleven, and later Smith sang with Norfolk bands as a teenager.

Prima hired her immediately and she became his fourth wife in 1953. The Surf Club was known for always bringing in the very top bands, but Cain had never heard of Prima and his orchestra. Their version of That Old Black Magic received an inaugural Grammy in 1958, along with a number of other successful Capitol albums. Her family was very poor and her mother took in laundry to earn enough money to pay for the weekly song lessons.

In 1949 when Prima and Smith returned to Virginia Beach, the Prima led band, as part of their act, left the stage and marched into the Atlantic Ocean playing and singing as they walked into the waves. Toni and Luanne are her survivors. She was 85 years old. Her father was a carpenter and after her mother divorced him when Smith was nine years old, she later married Jesse Smith, who was also a carpenter.

The song was also made popular by Gloria Lynne's 1964 Everest recording, but it is Smith's rendition that has delighted listeners for decades.

One of Smith and Prima's greatest hits was Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen's "That Old Black Magic." Although written in 1942 and a number one hit for the Modernaires, Prima and Smith revived it in 1958, making it another million dollar seller and a longtime favorite of the public.

There may have wrong or outdated info if you find so please let us know by leaving a comment below.