Stella Brooks (born October 24, 1910, Seattle, Washington – December 13, 2002, San Francisco, California) was an American jazz vocalist. Brooks began singing in San Francisco early in the 1930s. She moved to New York City in 1937, where she sang in the ensembles of

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, Sidney Bechet, Joe Sullivan,

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and Frank Newton among others. She played at the New York Town Hall in 1946. During this time she befriended Tennessee Williams and Billie Holiday; she was sometimes called "The white Billie Holiday". Williams wrote about Brooks in his memoirs. Brooks's career faded in the 1950s, during which time she played locally in clubs in New York. In 1962, she left the music industry and moved back to San Francisco. In 1981,

Folkways Records Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987 and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways. History The Folkways Records & Service ...

released some of her material on ''Songs of the 1940s: Diverse Songs and Moods''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brooks, Stella 1910 births 2002 deaths American women jazz singers American jazz singers 20th-century American singers 20th-century American women singers