Hadda Brooks
b. Hadda Hopgood, 29 October 1916, Los Angeles, California, USA. Brooks began taking piano lessons as a young child, later studying classical music in Los Angeles and Chicago. In 1945 record executive Jules Bihari, just starting Modern Records, heard Hadda's playing and signed her. Her first single, Swinging The Boogie, was issued in 1945. billed as Queen Of The Boogie (a film of the same name was made in 1947). The follow-up Rockin' The Boogie set the style for the rest of her career, although the many boogies she recorded — often modern arrangements of classical music like Humoresque or Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 — were usually backed with fine vocal blues or ballads. Although not trained in the blues, she became somewhat typecast as a boogie-woogie pianist, and counted Count Basie (who backed her on a single) and actor Humphrey Bogart (who cast her in a film) among her admirers. In 1951 she became the first black woman to host her own television show in California., as well as recording for London and OKeh Records. She toured with the Harlem Globetrotters in her spare time before moving to Australia for most of the '60s. In semi-retirement, she still retains a few choice engagements each year at certain Los Angeles restaurants and hotels and has released the occasional single on the small Rob Ray, Alwin and Kim labels.