THE VOICE OF MISS BROWN
“More Or Less Contralto”
Is she a mezzo-soprano or is she a contralto? No-one has ever defined the wide-range voice of Jewel Brown, vocalist with Louis Armstrong and his “All Stars.”
“I don’t rightly know,” Miss Brown said on her arrival in
Christchurch yesterday. “Nobody has ever claimed me, but I think I’m more or less a contralto.”
Like many other leading negro singers. Miss Brown received her early training in a church choir. “I began singing at the Rosehill Baptist Church in Houston at the age of six—l got my first professional engagement at 13—and I’ve been singing ever since,” she said. Travelling with the “AllStars” means little time for home or hobbies. “I stole two days off to fly home to Houston, Texas, before we left on this tour,” she said.
She has given up swimming in the meantime because water affects her sinuses and sinusitis affects her singing. “I drop anything that interferes with my work,” Miss Brown said.
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume CII, Issue 30076, 9 March 1963, Page 2
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167THE VOICE OF MISS BROWN Press, Volume CII, Issue 30076, 9 March 1963, Page 2
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