The Boswell Sisters › Similar Artists

Connee Boswell - 100% match to The Boswell Sisters

3 December 1907, Kansas City, Missouri, USA, d. 11 October 1976, New York City, New York, USA. An outstanding singer with enormous but often uncredited influence, Boswell claimed to have been inspired by singers as diverse as Bessie Smith and Enrico Caruso. According to outside sources, Connee and her sisters, Martha and Helvetia, were both influenced and encouraged by the N Read more

Lee Wiley - 69% match to The Boswell Sisters

9 October 1915, Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, USA, d. 11 December 1975, New York City, New York, USA. While still in her early teens, Wiley left home to begin a career singing with the Leo Reisman band. Her career was interrupted when, following a fall while horse-riding, she suffered temporary blindness. She recovered her sight and at the age of 19 was back with Reisman again. She Read more

Betty Hutton - 67% match to The Boswell Sisters

Elizabeth June Thornburg, 26 February 1921, Battle Creek, Michigan, USA, d. 11 March 2007, Palm Springs, California, USA. A dynamic and vivacious singer and actress, while still a small child Hutton began singing in the streets to help support her impoverished family. By her early teens she was already beginning to make a name for herself when she was hired by Vincent Lopez, Read more

Helen Kane - 65% match to The Boswell Sisters

Helen Schroder, 4 August 1904, New York, USA, d. 26 September 1966. Kane is remembered these days as the singer portrayed by Debbie Reynolds in Three Little Words, the 1950 film biography of songwriters Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. Kane, (who dubbed Reynolds’ vocals), was the baby-voiced singer who rose to fame on Broadway in the late 20s. She began her career in vaude Read more

Ethel Waters - 60% match to The Boswell Sisters

Ethel Howard, 31 October 1896, Chester, Pennsylvania, USA, d. 1 September 1977, Chatsworth, California, USA. One of the most influential of popular singers, Waters’ early career found her working in vaudeville. As a consequence, her repertoire was more widely based and popularly angled than those of many of her contemporaries. It is reputed that she was the first singer Read more

Annette Hanshaw - 59% match to The Boswell Sisters

18 October 1901, New York City, New York, USA, d. 12 March 1985. In 1926 Hanshaw, who had no particular ambitions to be a professional singer, was heard by an executive of Pathé Records and offered a recording contract. For the next eight years she made numerous records, radio broadcasts and film appearances before tiring of the showbusiness life. Although immensely p Read more

Helen Forrest - 58% match to The Boswell Sisters

Helen Fogel, 12 April 1917 or 1918, Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA, d. 11 July 1999, Los Angeles, California, USA. Forrest began singing as child and by her mid-teenage was appearing regularly on radio in New York City. Many of her appearances were on CBS, with whom she held a salaried job, and this led to her being heard by Artie Shaw who hired her in 1937. The other band s Read more

Kay Kyser - 54% match to The Boswell Sisters

James King Kern Kyser, 18 June 1906, Rocky Mount, North Carolina, USA, d. 23 July 1985, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. A popular band leader in the USA during the 30s and 40s, Kyser was born into an academically excellent family, and he too became a ‘professor’, though hardly in the conventional sense. While at high school he developed a flair for showmanship, a Read more

Al Bowlly - 51% match to The Boswell Sisters

Marion Harris - 49% match to The Boswell Sisters

Mary Ellen Harrison, 1896, Henderson, Kentucky, USA, d. 23 April 1944, New York City, New York, USA. A very popular singer on New York’s cabaret circuit during the first quarter of the twentieth century, Harris recorded several blues and jazz sessions for Victor Records between 1916 and 1928. Hits such as ‘I Ain’t Got Nobody’, ‘Paradise Blues’, Read more

Al Jolson - 47% match to The Boswell Sisters

Asa Yoelson, 26 May 1886, Srednick, Lithuania (his exact date of birth is uncertain), d. 23 October 1950, San Francisco, California, USA. Shortly before the turn of the century, Jolson’s father, Moses Yoelson, emigrated to the USA. In a few years he was able to send for his wife and four children, who joined him in Washington DC. Moses Yoelson was cantor at a synagogue Read more

Paul Whiteman - 46% match to The Boswell Sisters

28 March 1890, Denver, Colorado, USA, d. 29 December 1967, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, USA. Whiteman’s father was a distinguished music teacher and a career in music seemed the most natural thing for the youngster to follow. A tall, heavily-built individual, Whiteman first learned classical violin, and in his teens was a member of the local symphony orchestra. During Worl Read more

Sophie Tucker - 41% match to The Boswell Sisters

Sophie (or Sonia) Kalish-Abuza, 13 January 1884, in transit between Russia and Poland, d. 9 February 1966, New York, USA. A legendary performer of generous proportions, brassy and dynamic, who claimed to be The Last Of The Red-Hot Mamas. The daughter of Russian parents, Tucker was taken to the USA when she was three years old. Sophie’s father took the man’s name an Read more

Tex Beneke - 40% match to The Boswell Sisters

Gordon Beneke, 12 February 1914, Fort Worth, Texas, USA, d. 31 May 2000, Costa Mesa, California, USA. Starting out on soprano saxophone, Beneke switched to tenor, working with various bands in the south-west. In 1938, he joined Glenn Miller where, in addition to featured tenor, he was also a regular vocalist. Beneke sang with engaging charm, if limited ability, on such class Read more

Gene Austin - 39% match to The Boswell Sisters

Eugene Lucas, 24 June 1900, Gainseville, Texas, USA, d. 24 January 1972, Palm Springs, California, USA. A singer, pianist, songwriter, and all-round entertainer, Austin was known as a ‘soft-voiced’ performer, with an intimate, appealing style. He joined a circus while in his teens, and then served as a bugler in the US Army during World War I. Later, he worked in v Read more