Calloway, Blanche

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Calloway, Blanche

Calloway, Blanche, jazz singer, leader, sister of Cab Calloway; b. Baltimore, Md., 1902; d. there, Dec. 16, 1978. She was featured at N.Y. ’s Ciro Club during the mid-1920s, then did extensive touring with traveling revues and played residencies in Chicago. She fronted Andy Kirk’s Band for residency at Pearl Theatre, Philadelphia (1931); from then on led her own touring band until September 1938, when bankruptcy (filed under married name of Blanche Calloway Pinder) forced her to disband. She worked as a solo artist for several years. During the early 1960s, she was the director of a Fla. radio station.

—John Chilton/Lewis Porter