Alberta Adams (USA)

Adams was born as Roberta Louise Osborn on July 26, 1917, in Indianapolis, Indiana. She was raised in Detroit by family members, initially an aunt. From an early age she wanted to be an entertainer. Escaping a difficult home life at age fourteen, she began living on her own, getting a small apartment near Woodward, where she stayed for five or six years.
She began performing as a tap dancer in Detroit's Hastings Street clubs in Detroit and began singing shortly after. In the 1940s, she appeared at the B&C club as a tap dancer, among artists such as John Lee Hooker. When headliner Kitty Stevenson was too ill to perform one night, Adams gave an impromptu two-song performance, as a result of which the club hired her as a vocalist for a five-year stint. Among her contemporaries and musical teachers on Hastings Street were Hooker, Big Maceo Merriweather, Eddie Burns, and Eddie Kirkland. In her solo career, she secured a recording contract with the now-defunct Cannonball Records and recorded two albums for them: Born with the Blues (1999) and Say Baby Say (2000). Her 2004 album, I'm on the Move, was released by Eastlawn Records. In 2006 she released the EP Detroit's Queen of the Blues, which was named Outstanding Blues/R&B Recording at the 2006 Detroit Music Awards. At age 91 she recorded Detroit Is My Home, with Ann Rabson and Thornetta Davis. She died on 25th December 2014.

16.February 1999

Cannonball 29106/ 11 tr./ 53:55 min.