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Ketty Lester – Love Letters (1962)
Ketty Lester took this 1945 Dick Haynes standard pop hit and transformed it into a classic. And that piano playing is simply awesome. I loved this song from the very first time I heard it and whenever I watched Ketty playing Hester-Sue on “Little House” (yes I watched it and I watched “The Waltons” too — so there) it boggled my mind to try to understand what happened that made her turn from music to acting.
Lester, born Revoyda Frierson in Arkansas, began singing professionally as soon as she completed a San Francisco State College music course where she was studying Nursing on Scholarship. She played the “Purple Onion” club, toured Europe and joined Cab Calloway’s Revue (WHEW) before having what was to be her biggest musical hit with “Love Letters”
Composed by Edward Heyman and Victor Young, Lester took the song to #2 BIllboard R&B Singles, #5 Billboard Pop Singles, and #5 UK, while the LP of the same name charted only #54 Billboard Pop Albums. After a few more LPs Lester concentrated on her acting and has had quite a long and successful career at it. She also appeared in the 1964 revival of “Cabin in the Sky.”
Enjoy this vintage clip of Lester performing her classic.
This post is a bit later in the day than usual since I had been in bed with food poisoning for the past two days. Typically my Wednesday posts are prepared on Tuesday night, but today was my first day up and about and back to work and I just prepared this when I got home from work Wednesday evening.
Of course you can see that the new theme for the month of October is those Fabulous Female artists. I will update the October birthdays this weekend. Better late than never – right?
I gotta keep the oldies alive.
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Filed under: Edward Heyman & Victor Young, Era, Fabulous Female Vocalists, Ketty Lester, Love Letters, Pop/R&B, Sixties
