Savannah Churchill

Introduction

SAVANNAH CHURCHILL was born on Savannah Valentine to Creole parents on August 21, 1920, in Colfax, Louisiana. She was raised in Brooklyn, and started singing in 1941 to support her family after her husband David Churchill was killed in a car accident. She had a successful career as a singer of pop, jazz, and blues music in the 1940s and 1950s until she was injured in a nightclub accident in 1956.

Savannah Churchill's first recordings, including the risqué “Fat Meat Is Good Meat,” were issued on Beacon Records in 1942. These were followed the next year by recordings on Capitol with the Benny Carter Orchestra, including her first hit “Hurry, Hurry.”

In 1945 she signed with Manor Records, and that year “Daddy Daddy” reached # 3 on the R&B chart. Two years later she had her only R&B # 1 with “I Want To Be Loved (But Only By You),” which topped the charts for eight weeks. The record was billed as being with vocal group The Sentimentalists, who soon renamed themselves The Four Tunes. Subsequent recordings with The Four Tunes, including “Time Out For Tears” (# 10 R&B, # 24 pop) and “I Want To Cry,” both in 1948, were also successful.

Billed as “Sex-Sational,” she performed to much acclaim, and appeared in the movies Miracle in Harlem (1948) and Souls of Sin (1949). She toured widely with backing vocal group The Striders, including a visit to Hawaii in 1954. From 1949 she recorded with Regal, RCA Victor and Decca Records, recording the original version of “Shake A Hand,” later a big hit for Faye Adams, and also recording with the Ray Charles Singers. In 1956 she was one of the first artists signed to the Argo label, set up as a subsidiary to Chess Records.

Tragedy struck later in 1956 to end her career. She was singing on stage in a club, when a drunken man fell on top of her from a balcony above, causing severe debilitating injuries from which she would never fully recover. Although she recorded an album of her earlier hits for the Philadelphia-based Jamie label in 1960, her health declined greatly until her death in 1974, at the age of 53.

Photos

Bob Eberly appeared at Chubby's Cafe on Mt. Ephraim Avenue and Collings Road on the first two weekends in January of 1950. Also on the bill at Chubbys on those dates were The Four Blues with Arthur Davey and the house orchestra, and the Frank Virtuoso Band, perhaps better known somewhat later as Frank Virtue and the Virtues. Over the next six weeks the Frank Virtuoso Band shared the stage with Savannah Churchill, June Christy, Art Lund, Bill Darnel, Dick Todd, Billy Hays, Eve Young, Emilie Longacre, Artie Russell's New Yorkers, and the Doles Dickens Quintet.

Savannah Churchill and the Striders. From left to Right, Ernest Griffin, Savannah Churchill, Gene Strider, Charles Strider (standing), and James Strider (standing).