Lena Horne

My research this week will be on Lena Horne. Although she was not a singer in the Cotton Club she was a  great performer. She was born in Brooklyn on June 30 1917. Her birth name was Lena Mary Calhoun Horne. She said that while she was bring born her father was playing a card game trying to win money to pay for their hospital bills. Her parents soon divorced and her mother left  later on to find work to be an aspiring actress. Therefore she was raised by her grandparents. When she turned seven her mom returned and they traveled around the state, at the age of 14 she dropped out of school. She got her big break at age 16 where she was fired at the Cotton Club as a dancer. There she met Harold Arlen who wrote "stormy Weather" which would soon be her greatest hit. For the next 5 years she performed in different New York nightclubs, touring with the Charlie Barnet Orchestra, and on Broadway. She was the first black women to successfully work on both sides of the color line since the orchestra was a predominantly white band.  She then moved to Hollywood where she played small rolls in movies and sometimes when they would get sent to the producers they would get cut out. "Cabin in the sky" and "stormy Weather" were the only movies were she played a character that was involved in the plot. She became the premier pin-up girl who thousands of black soldiers during WWII. In 1963 she lost her father, son and husband within the year. She somewhat vanished from public life. Until 1981 she created a one-women show called Lena Horne: The lady and her music.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0395043/bio
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/lena-horne/about-the-performer/487/

Lena Horne Stormy Weather:
There are six stanzas in AABA form. The song is talking about how her man has gone and now she has nobody. There is no sun everything is dark and gloomy and she feels like she cant go on with her life. The song starts off very soft as if she is telling a story and by the end of it she wants you to actually hear the story she is telling and feel how she is feeling. In 1943 Stormy Weather was turned in to a film.

Intro: 2 counts of piano horns loud brass at the end
Chorus: Singing, horns, pianos, string,
Verse 1: Singing and piano with a few strings
Chorus
Verse 2: Singing, horns
chorus
Verse 3: Horns at the beginning
bridge: a string solo for 2 counts, singing is louder and more passionate
Chorus: more intense
Fading out with horns and strings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzLkXdkuhX8