Adelaide Hall

Adelaide Louise Hall (20 October 1901 – 7 November 1993) was an American-born UK-based jazz singer and entertainer. Her career spanned more than 70 years from 1921 until her death. Early in her career, she was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance; she became based in the UK after 1938. Hall entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 2003 as the world's most enduring recording artist, having released material over eight consecutive decades. She performed with major artists such as Art Tatum, Ethel Waters, Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Cab Calloway, Fela Sowande, Rudy Vallee, and Jools Holland, and recorded as a jazz singer with Duke Ellington (with whom she made her most famous recording, "Creole Love Call" in 1927) and with Fats Waller.

Early life and marriage

Adelaide Hall was born in Brooklyn, New York City, United States, to Elizabeth and William Hall in 1901. Adelaide and her sister Evelyn attended the Pratt Institute, where William Hall taught piano. Her father died on March 23, 1917. Three years later, Evelyn died of pneumonia on March 25, 1920, leaving Adelaide to support herself and her mother.

In 1924, Hall married the British sailor Bertram Errol Hicks, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago. Soon after their marriage he opened a club in Harlem, New York, called "The Big Apple" and became her official business manager.