Marion Montgomery

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Marion Montgomery (November 17, 1934 – July 22, 2002) was a United States born jazz singer who lived in the United Kingdom.

Born Maud Runnells in Natchez, Mississippi, she began her career in Atlanta working clubs, and then in Chicago where singer Peggy Lee heard her on an audition tape and suggested she should be signed up by Capitol Records, releasing three albums for them in the early and mid 1960s. During this early part of her career, she became Marian Montgomery and then later changed the spelling of her first name to Marion, having previously gone by the nickname of Pepe.

In 1965 she came to England to play a season with John Dankworth and met and married English pianist and musical director Laurie Holloway, thus beginning a long and productive association in which they both became very well known to British jazz, cabaret and television audiences. She numbered amongst her admirers Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and British chat show host Michael Parkinson, on whose show she became resident singer in the 1970s. She also famously collaborated with composer and conductor Richard Rodney Bennett for a series of concerts and albums in the 1980’s and early 1990’s.

She is judged to have been amongst the very best of modern jazz singers and to have possessed a unique musical style along with an equally unique way of expressing the sentiments of her material. Montgomery never categorized herself purely as a jazz singer, rather simply as “a singer”. This is reflected in the huge variety of styles she sang, although she acknowledged her influences as being jazz based.

Her final studio recording was That Lady from Natchez, released in 1999. She continued to perform until just before her death, including a sell-out three week season at London’s Pizza in the Park in April 2002.

Montgomery died in July 2002 (the same year as Peggy Lee) after a 10 year fight with cancer which she always blamed on passive smoking from working in nightclubs, though she herself had never smoked.

[edit] Discography

LP Records

Marian Swings for Winners and Losers, Capitol (1962)
Let there be Marian Montgomery, Capitol (1963)
Lovin’ is Livin’, Capitol (1965)
What’s New?, Decca 74773
Marian in the Morning, Polydor 2383159 (1972)
Surprise Surprise (with Richard Rodney Bennett), Cube HIFLY 24 (1977)
Town and Country (with Richard Rodney Bennett), Cube HIFLY 28 (1978)
On Stage, Cube HIFLY 29 (1982)
Puttin’ on the Ritz (with Richard Rodney Bennett), Cube HIFLY 40, (1984)
I Gotta Right to Sing (live at Ronnie Scott’s), Jazz House Records, 003 1988 (1988)

CD’s

Sometimes in the Night, See for Miles (1989)
Mellow, See for Miles (1994)
A Night at Ronnie’s (recorded live), Ronnie Scott’s Jazz House
Nice and Easy (live), Ronnie Scott’s Jazz, (1996)
I Gotta Right to Sing (live), Ronnie Scott’s Jazz, (1996) (reissue)
For the Love of Mercer Vol 1, Elgin (1997)
For the Love of Mercer Vol 2, Elgin (1997)
Makin’ Whoopie (with Mart Rodger Manchester Jazz), Bowstone records (1993)
Ballads and Blues, Elgin (1999)
That Lady from Natchez, Audiophile (1999)
What’s New? Universal (2002) (CD reissue)
Skylark, UCJ (2004)
Marian Montgomery, EMI (2005) (two disc CD reissue of Let There be MM and Lovin’ is Livin’)