Lillian Etta Offitt (November 4, 1938 – February 27, 2020) was an American blues and R&B singer.

Biography

Born in

Gallatin, Tennessee Gallatin is a city in and the county seat of Sumner County, Tennessee. The population was 30,278 at the 2010 United States census, 2010 census and 44,431 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Named for United States Secretary of the Tr ...

in 1938 (or 1937), she studied at

Tennessee State University Tennessee State University (Tennessee State, Tenn State, or TSU) is a public historically black land-grant university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1912, it is the only state-funded historically black university in Tenness ...

, and visited the offices of Nashboro Records in the hope of making a

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

record. The label owner, Ernie Young, suggested she record secular music instead, and her first record, "Miss You So", was issued on its subsidiary Excello label in 1957. It rose to number 8 on the '' Billboard''

R&B chart The Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart ranks the most popular R&B and hip hop songs in the United States and is published weekly by ''Billboard''. Rankings are based on a measure of radio airplay, sales data, and streaming activity. The chart had 100 p ...

, and she turned professional, making appearances in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and, later in the year, touring with

Lowell Fulson Lowell Fulson (March 31, 1921March 7, 1999) was an American blues guitarist and songwriter, in the West Coast blues tradition. He also recorded for contractual reasons as Lowell Fullsom and Lowell Fulsom. After T-Bone Walker, he was the most imp ...

, Johnny "Guitar" Watson and others. She moved to live in Chicago, where she performed in

nightclub A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music. Nightclubs gener ...

s and continued to release records, but with diminishing success. Biography, ''Allmusic.com''
Retrieved 10 October 2016
Retrieved 10 October 2016 In 1959 she joined

Earl Hooker Earl Zebedee Hooker (January 15, 1930 – April 21, 1970) was a Chicago blues guitarist known for his slide guitar playing. Considered a "musician's musician", he performed with blues artists such as Sonny Boy Williamson II, Junior Wells, and ...

's band as a featured vocalist, and signed for

Chief Records Chief Records, together with its Profile and Age subsidiaries, was an independent record label that operated from 1957 to 1964. Best known for its recordings of Chicago blues artists Elmore James, Junior Wells, Magic Sam, and Earl Hooker, the lab ...

in Chicago. Her recording of "Will My Man Be Home Tonight?", featuring Hooker on guitar, became a regional hit but failed to make the national charts. Follow-up records again failed to be commercially successful, and she retired from music in the early 1960s to raise a family, being replaced on an intended

American Folk Blues Festival The American Folk Blues Festival was a music festival that toured Europe as an annual event for several years beginning in 1962. It introduced audiences in Europe, including the UK, to leading blues performers of the day such as Muddy Waters, Howl ...

tour of Europe by

Sugar Pie DeSanto Sugar Pie DeSanto (born Peylia Marsema Balinton, October 16, 1935) is an American R&B singer and dancer, whose career in music flourished in the 1950s and 1960s. Early life DeSanto was born to an African-American mother, who was a concert pianis ...

. Her last reported performance was in 1974, in

St. Joseph, Michigan St. Joseph, colloquially known as St. Joe, is a city and the county seat of Berrien County, Michigan. It was incorporated as a village in 1834 and as a city in 1891. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 8,365. It lies on the shore o ...

. Offitt continued to live in

Racine, Wisconsin Racine ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Racine County, Wisconsin, United States. It is located on the shore of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Root River. Racine is situated 22 miles (35 km) south of Milwaukee and approximately 60 ...

, working outside the music business and raising her family. She died on February 27, 2020, aged 81.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Offitt, Lillian 1938 births 2020 deaths 20th-century African-American women singers American rhythm and blues singers People from Gallatin, Tennessee 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women