Up close and personal
The two greatest things about Blossom Dearie were:
- That voice, which sounded like it ought to belong to someone named “Blossom Dearie”;
- That name, which was her real name.
Okay, they gave her “Marguerite” as a first name. She got over it. And in a career that stretched over six decades, she made dozens of records and thousands of friends.
If your taste in jazz runs to the small ensemble and the whatever-it-is of bebop, you’ve almost certainly already discovered Dearie. (If you haven’t, here’s about nine minutes of her in the middle 1980s.) One thing I did not know: she provided vocals for some songs for Schoolhouse Rock.
And now she’s gone, at eighty-two.
fillyjonk »
11 February 2009 · 10:29 am
“Marguerite” is French for a type of Daisy, so technically it’s still “Blossom.”
I knew her better for Schoolhouse Rock than for anything, but didn’t realize that until years later when I bought a CD of Jerome Kern songs, one of which she performed (“I Won’t Dance,” and an excellent version it is) and realized how familiar that voice was…and then read the liner notes.
McGehee »
11 February 2009 · 1:29 pm
I saw her once on (I think) Mike Douglas. I don’t remember very well what I thought of her music, but the name and her appearance definitely made an impression on my young sensibilities.
As I recall, on that occasion her hair was long, straight, and snowy white, and later when I discovered who played Grandmama on “The Addams Family” I wondered if they were related.
McGehee »
11 February 2009 · 1:32 pm
Now that I think of it, we had a black-and-white TV back then — I may have only thought her hair was white…