BIOGRAPHY AND DISCOGRAPHY

 

A singer more notorious than famous thanks to the suggestiveness of her earliest cuts in rock ‘n’ roll but for most of her career was more of a club act than a recording artist.

Fluffy Hunter was born Loronia Parham in 1924, possibly taking her stage name from a relative through marriage, but it was one she carried with her for her entire career beginning with the usual small venue club stints from coast to coast in the mid-1940’s.

She got her first real break working with saxophonist Buddy Banks in 1946, cutting three songs with them in Los Angeles, two of which were issued on Excelsior late that year, the third got put out on United Artists late the following year.

She remained with Banks through at least 1948 but by the end of the following year Hunter had relocated on a somewhat permanent basis to Arizona where she headlined a Tucson club for close to a year with occasional forays elsewhere in the state.

In late 1951, back in New York, she got a gig singing with Lournell Morgan, a jive pianist who had long been a popular attraction on the club circuit himself. It was while with him that she first worked with saxophonist Jesse Powell who had joined them briefly and it was with Powell that she got her next chance to record, only now it would be off-color rock ‘n’ roll as Federal Records signed them both up.

The initial records credited Powell as the primary artist with Hunter as the vocalist, but this was just a studio concoction as they never joined forces elsewhere. One side of each of the records were notable for their raciness and the first did make the regional charts in New York but never caught on nationally.

It would be almost two years before Federal brought her back in for a follow-up session – as they did with Powell separately – and the resulting session resulted in two releases in early 1954 though they came and went without much notice and ended her recording career.

Hunter continued singing at increasingly small clubs throughout the 1950’s but without recent records to plug she wasn’t in demand and by 1960 had disappeared from the music scene.

She died in 2006, her skimpy recording career probably far more notable today than it was at the time thanks to the prurient interest in potentially scandalous material from rock’s early days by modern crate diggers.
 
 

FLUFFY HUNTER DISCOGRAPHY (Records Reviewed To Date on Spontaneous Lunacy):
 

LOVE IS A FORTUNE
(Federal 12056; February, 1952)
Though Hunter shows she has a strong voice the song and arrangement don’t do her many favors as the torch song is upended by some far too lively playing and the song itself doesn’t have the kind of depth as written to overcome those choices. (3)

THE WALKIN’ BLUES (WALK RIGHT IN, WALK RIGHT OUT)
(Federal 12056; February, 1952)
Hunter’s most notorious performance lives up to its reputation as she sells the raunchy sexual ode with a coy flirtatiousness that adds to the allure even as the musical side of the equation threatens to water down the message. (7)

MY NATCH’L MAN
(Federal 12060; March, 1952)
A case where the hint of impropriety is being forced to carry the song because they don’t go far enough to leave no doubt as to its salacious content, both lyrically and instrumentally, so while Hunter sings it well enough, there’s not enough bite to leave a scar. (6)