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HOW and why is it that all these “low down’’ song¬ birds with deep, full voices are invariably so tiny? Mildred Bailey, whose voice comes over the airwaves with incredible power and “push,” just barely tips the beam at one hundred pounds. And her height is two inches past five feet. Those who know her ask “Where does she get that voice?”
Perhaps there is something in practice. She started doing things to songs when she was a kid. That was out Puget Sound way.
She landed in the West Coast’s star spot for lasses with lungs. She got a job in a Seattle ten cent store, shouting songs at the customers as they milled past in the aisle. Can you imagine the work of singing eight hours a day? She liked it and the customers liked it. They told their friends to drop in to hear that little Bailey girl sing. Her reputation spread across Oregon and Washington.
A manager for a Vancouver, Canada, supper club heard
of her. He slipped into the crowd of shoppers one day and leaned against a counter, listening. Mildred sang the usual songs, all unaware.
The manager went away, smiling to himself. The girl had the voice. With a little training in “putting herself over” she would, wow them. He wrote, offering a job.
She hurried to Vancouver. That voice, low in the throat, pulsing, was something new in Vancouver. She was a riot, a smash hit, a success.
Later, she took a train for Chicago “just for fun.” She wondered if she could make good in the big Middle West¬ ern town. One of the first persons to hear her was Paul Whiteman.
“You’re going to sing with my outfit,” he told her — and she signed the dotted line.
Chicago loved her, still loves her. America learned of her when Whiteman put her on the air. And fan mail, the unfailing thermometer of popularity, has already pro¬ claimed her one of radio’s favorite godchildren.
MILDRED BAILEY sang songs across a ten-cent store counter
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