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Calloway, Cabell (Cab)
4 articles on Calloway, Cabell (Cab)
Calloway, Cabell (Cab)
Source: Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition
Word Count: 869 Includes: Bibliography1907–1994
African American singer and bandleader, famous for his showmanship and skill at jive. Cab Calloway, born in Rochester, New York, was the son of a lawyer who had expected his son to follow in his footsteps. But when Calloway was in his teens he left Baltimore, Maryland—where his family had moved when he was six—to join an older sister in Chicago, Illinois. She arranged his first job as a performer in a vocal harmony quartet. In 1925, the year that Calloway cited as the start of his career, he became the drummer in the Sunset Orchestra; two years later he organized his own band, giving up the drums to concentrate on singing.Around 1927 Calloway brought his band, the Alabamians, to New York City for a gig at the famed Savoy BallroominConnie's ...
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Source: African American National Biography
Word Count: 1931 Includes: Further Reading | Obituary:(25 Dec. 1907–18 Nov. 1994), popular singer and bandleader, was born Cabell Calloway III in Rochester, New York, the third of six children of Cabell Calloway Jr., a lawyer, and Martha Eulalia Reed, a public school teacher. In 1920, two years after the family moved to the Calloways’ hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, Cab's father died. Eulalia later remarried and had two children with John Nelson Fortune, an insurance salesman who became known to the Calloway children as “Papa Jack.”Although he later enjoyed a warm relationship with his stepfather, the teenaged Cab had a rebellious streak that tried the patience of parents attempting to maintain their status as respectable Baltimoreans. He often skipped school to go to the nearby Pimlico racetrack, where he both earned money selling newspapers and shining shoes and began ...
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Source: American National Biography Online
Word Count: 3436 Includes: Bibliographyjazz and popular singer and bandleader, was born Cabell Calloway III in Rochester, New York, the son of Cabell Calloway, a lawyer who also worked in real estate, and Martha Eulalia Reed, a public school teacher and church organist. Around 1914 the family moved to Baltimore, Maryland. His father died around 1920, and his mother married John Nelson Fortune, who held a succession of respectable jobs. Calloway sang solos at Bethlehem Methodist Episcopal Church, and he took voice lessons at age fourteen. He was nevertheless an incorrigible teenager, and in 1921 his stepfather sent him to Downingtown Industrial and ...
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Source: Grove Music Online
Word Count: 621 Includes: Bibliography(b. Rochester, NY, 25 Dec 1907; d. Hockessin, DE, 18 Nov 1994). American popular and jazz singer and bandleader. He spent his childhood in Baltimore and began his professional career in Chicago as a singer and dancer. In 1929 he led such groups as the Alabamians in Chicago and New York and the Missourians in New York, where he also appeared in the revue Hot Chocolates. In 1930 the Missourians played and recorded under Calloway’s name; they performed with great success at the Cotton Club in 1931, and soon replaced Duke Ellington’s band there as house orchestra. The group continued at the Cotton Club regularly until 1940. It also toured Europe in 1934, appeared in several films (including The Big Broadcast, 1933, The Singing Kid, 1936, and Stormy Weather, 1943) and made a large numberPorgy ...
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