Weekend Onesie: Cooking With Annie Ross

Weekend Onesie: 
Cooking With Annie Ross

It's funny. 

I've kept this book cover for years, because of the hair. I figured if she was brave enough to tease her hair that large then the lady must have balls of steel. It's also in her gaze. You can tell - she's seen some things. And while there are pots and pans in the background, what does she choose? Why a glass of wine, of course. And then there's the dress; no blue gingham with a cute little apron for this gal.

And that's all she was to me, for years - a joke. 

I unearthed her today and was going to simply do a one off, pointing out how amazing and silly she looked on the cover of this obvious vanity project of a cookbook. 

But then I decided to Google the name. Who was she.

Well... Annie Ross is a musical icon, folks. That comes as no surprise to those in the UK, where she spent much of her musical career and life, but for the uninformed? 

This woman is no joke.

I was going to let Wikipedia do the heavy lifting, here, but since I want to actually store the info I've learned about her, I will try to regurgitate it from memory. 

Here's a bunch of facts about Jazz siren, Annie Ross.

Her parents were a couple of British vaudevillians and she makes her stage debut, singing, at age three. Then she and her parents hop a ship and end up in New York, where she manages to win a radio contest and a 'token' contract with MGM. Her aunt moves with her to Los Angeles and, at the age of seven, she sings a solo in an 'Our Gang' film and then appears as Judy Garland's sister in Presenting Lily Mars. Her parents have moved back to Scotland and it will be fourteen years until she sees them again.

She started singing at an early age, but her career really began when she was fourteen and won a song contest. The song was then recorded by Johnny Mercer and The Pied Pipers; pretty heady stuff for a fourteen year-old.

She continues to write and makes quite a name for herself among Jazz musicians. In 10th grade, she quits school, changes her name to Annie Ross and moves to Europe. There, she's approached by a label to write melody and lyrics to an existing song. The song becomes one known as Twisted. She record it and it becomes and underground hit, making waves in the industry - so much so, that she's wins Down Beat magazine's New Star award. 

She records seven albums as part of a trio, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. Initially, she'd been hired to oversea the group vocals for an album Lambert and Hendricks were putting together. But the ended up smitten with Ross's sound and the three formed a rewarding musical partnership. They tour constantly.

Ross has a child with a drummer. She leaves the kid with relatives and carries on. She has an affair with Lenny Bruce, who introduces her to heroin and that messes up her life for quite awhile. But she rights the ship. She sings, she appears in films, some major ones, and is eventually heralded a Jazz Icon, wining all sorts of accolades and awards, including:  the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame award (2009), the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters' Award (2010), and the MAC Award for Lifetime Achievement (2011).

In 2001, she finally becomes a US citizen. She dies in 2020, in NYC, four days before her 90th birthday. 

There's a one-woman show about her. There's a documentary. She's revered.

Yeah, no joke, this Annie Ross.

Goes to show - you can't judge a book by its cover!

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Loch Lomond - Annie Ross

from the 1937 film short Our Gang Follies of 1938

Twisted - Annie Ross w/ Count Basie

Everyday - Lambert, Hendricks & Ross

The Farewell Song - Cleo Laine, Annie Ross 

and Barbara Evans

Annie Ross w/ the Peggy O'Keefe Quartet