Zilla Florine Mays (September 1, 1931 – September 19, 1995), Bob L. Eagle, Eric S. LeBlanc, ''Blues: A Regional Experience'', ABC-CLIO, 2013
/ref> later Zilla Mays Hinton, was an American R&B and

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 an ...

singer who became a popular

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

DJ and community leader in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

. She was the first

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

female radio announcer in Georgia, and only the third in the United States.

Life

She was born in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, and started singing in church. By her teens, she had started performing with her brother's band, the Roy Mays All Stars, which later became the Willie Mays Blues Caravan. J. C. Marion, "The Dream Girl : Zilla Mays", 2008
Retrieved 8 September 2014 ("Willie" was Roy Mays' nickname.) After graduating from Booker T. Washington High School, she studied at Reed Business College while continuing her singing career. In late 1950, she was signed as a

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

singer by

Savoy Records Savoy Records is an American record company and label established by Herman Lubinsky in 1942 in Newark, New Jersey. Savoy specialized in jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel music. In September 2017, Savoy was acquired by Concord Bicycle Music. ...

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and sec ...

label released "I'll Keep Singing My Song" in late 1952. The following year, she signed for the

Mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

label and recorded with the John Peek orchestra, releasing the singles "If You Were On The Other Side", "Seems Like You Just Don't Care", and "Don't Take My Good Love Away". In 1954 she began broadcasting on radio station WAOK in Atlanta, where she was known as "The Mystery Lady" as her identity was not disclosed to listeners. After it was revealed in 1955, she was known as "The Dream Girl", and often performed on-air with Piano Red. She also continued to record in the mid-1950s, for labels including Groove, a subsidiary of RCA, and then Atco."Zilla Mays", Georgia Radio Museum and Hall of Fame
Retrieved 8 September 2014 She continued as a popular radio personality and community leader in the Atlanta area and was instrumental in bringing live R&B and gospel music to the area. Her career increasingly turned to gospel music, broadcasting a regular "Cathedral of Friends" Sunday program as well as a regular gospel show. In 1961,

Checker Records Checker Records is an inactive record label that was started in 1952 as a subsidiary of Chess Records in Chicago, Illinois. The label was founded by the Chess brothers, Leonard and Phil, who ran the label until they sold it to General Recorded ...

released an album, ''Prayers for Jackie'', and the same year she recorded another album, for the NRC label, ''The Men I Love And The Songs They Sing''. She also continued to work with Piano Red in shows and on radio. In about 1968, she recorded a version of

Allen Toussaint Allen Richard Toussaint (; January 14, 1938 – November 10, 2015) was an American musician, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was an influential figure in New Orleans rhythm and blues from the 1950s to the end of the century, descri ...

's “All I Want Is You” for his Tou-Sea label. “All I Want Is You”, ''Discogs.com''
Retrieved 8 September 2014 Her radio show on WAOK changed to a gospel format in the late 1970s. She won a Pioneer Award from the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

in 1986. After spending almost 40 years at WAOK, she died in Atlanta in 1995 at the age of 64.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mays, Zilla 1931 births 1995 deaths Musicians from Atlanta Radio personalities from Atlanta 20th-century African-American women singers