Keely Smith Informations

Dorothy Jacqueline Keely (March 9, 1928[note 1] – December 16, 2017), better known as Keely Smith, was an American jazz and popular music singer, who performed and recorded extensively in the 1950s with then-husband Louis Prima, and throughout the 1960s as a solo artist.

Born in Norfolk, Virginia, Smith was of Irish and Cherokee ancestry. Jesse Smith, her stepfather, was a carpenter, and her mother took in laundry to earn money to buy gowns for Smith to wear when she performed.

When Smith was 11 years old, she sang regularly as a cast member of The Joe Brown Radio Gang program on a Norfolk station. At age 14, Smith sang with a naval air station band led by Saxie Dowell. At 15, she got her first paying job with the Earl Bennett band. She saw Louis Prima perform in New York City in 1949.[note 2] They recorded together in 1949 and married on July 13, 1953.

Their songs included Johnny Mercer's and Harold Arlen's "That Old Black Magic," which was a Top 20 hit in the US in 1958. At the 1st Annual Grammy Awards in 1959, Smith and Prima won the first Grammy for Best Performance by a Vocal Group or Chorus for "That Old Black Magic". Her deadpan act was popular with fans. The duo followed up with the minor successes "I've Got You Under My Skin" and "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen", a revival of the 1937 Andrews Sisters hit.

Smith and Prima's act was a mainstay of the Las Vegas lounge scene for much of the 1950s. Though her actual voice was not used, she was caricatured as "Squealy Smith" in Bob Clampett's 1960 Beany and Cecil episode "So What and the Seven Whatnots," a Snow White spoof in a Vegas setting.

Smith appeared with Prima in the movie Hey Boy! Hey Girl!, singing "Fever", and also appeared in and sang on the soundtrack of the previous year's film Thunder Road. Her song in Thunder Road was "Whippoorwill". She also appeared in the film Senior Prom.

Her first big solo hit was "I Wish You Love" in 1957, and it brought her a Grammy award nomination for Best Vocal Performance, Female. Her debut album by that same title achieved gold status In 1961, Smith divorced Prima. She then signed with Reprise Records, where her musical director was Nelson Riddle. In 1965, she had Top 20 hits in the United Kingdom with an album of Beatles compositions, Keely Smith Sings The John Lennon—Paul McCartney Songbook, and a single, "You're Breaking My Heart", which reached No. 14 in April.

She returned to singing in 1985, recording the album I'm in Love Again with Bud Shank and Bill Perkins. Her albums, Swing, Swing, Swing (2000), Keely Sings Sinatra (2001) for which she received a Grammy nomination, and Keely Swings Basie-Style With Strings (2002) won critical and popular acclaim.

In 1986, Smith faced legal problems for failing to withhold employee personal income and disability insurance taxes in connection with vending companies (including Piggy Vending) she owned in Palm Springs, California.

On December 16, 2017, Smith died of apparent heart failure in Palm Springs, California, at the age of 89. She is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills.

In 1998, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars was dedicated to her. She also has a star at 7080 Hollywood Boulevard in the Recording section of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It was dedicated on September 22, 1998.

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Keely Smith among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

With Louis Prima

With Louis Prima, Sam Butera and The Witnesses

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