Thinking about Eugenie Baird and My Mom on Mother’s Day
My mom with her grandson Tom
Coming from a family peppered with jazz musicians, I grew up listening to gifted big band vocalists like Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, and Ella Fitzgerald who went on to successfully build solo careers in the 1950s and beyond.
I thought I was familiar with all the great jazz vocalists of that period, but I was wrong. At an estate sale, my husband and I picked up a 1954 album featuring Eugenie Baird, a fabulous singer neither of us was familiar with. We were blown away by her gorgeous voice, phrasing, and dynamics. As the jazz critic Marc Myers wrote about her, she was “overlooked” and has largely been forgotten, despite being “one terrific big-band vocalist with a sterling, modern sound.”
Today, few people know her name, or that she had her own weekly radio show while she was in high school. When Bing Crosby heard her, he made her his singing partner on NBC for a year. She went on to become the lead vocalist for Glen Gray’s Casa Loma Orchestra and worked with several other big bands.
Who knows why some careers of the super-talented flourish, while other careers fade, and few even remember them?
But my guess is that her surviving family members and friends do remember her, despite her never having become a super-star.
My own mother, who died in 2019 at the age of 98, wasn’t even remotely famous. But in my eyes, like Eugenie Baird, she deserved to be a super-star.
Her entry into my life occurred when I was twelve, and she married my single parent dad. I can’t begin to express how life-changing it was to acquire this amazing mom! As I’ve often joked, she was “the first parent I’d had who wanted the job.” After school each day, she’d greet me with freshly baked cookies, eager to listen to my pre-teen and teenage woes. I loved her with all my heart, and we spoke nearly daily until the day she died.
I still hold her in my heart and miss her dearly, not only on Mother’s Day but every day. My guess is that Eugenie Baird’s family feels the same way.
Happy Mother’s Day.
The parallels you draw here are both creative and instructive. Thanks for adding this entry to your many meaningful blog posts.
Thanks so much, Marty!