Evelyn Preer, surely must qualify as the first example of, regardless of race, what has since come to be known in the entertainment industry as a multi-media entertainer. In the 1920s when most performers were getting their feet wet in one medium alone, Preer was firmly established not only as a film star (Oscar Micheaux), but also on recordings, radio, in vaudeville and on the legitimate stage . Mississippi native Preer toured the Orpheum and other vaudeville circuits in the teens; then, simultaneous to her work with the Lafayette Players in the 1920s she appeared on Broadway as the star of such productions as Lulu Belle (1926), Rang Tang (1927), and the '27 dramatization of DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy. Preer's latter-day obscurity clearly arises from her death from pneumonia at the height of her career at the young age of 35 in 1932. So prolific was Ms. Preer's career on discs that she had to resort to a number of different pseudonyms to account for all of the sides she was cutting, thus the "A.K.A." subtitle of the proposed CD that is the goal of this project.
A number of Ms. Preer's tracks are available at various internet sites but, alas, invariably in highly distressed copies. It is the goal of this project to have twelve of these cuts professionally sonically restored and packaged in a nicely-designed CD that will contain a bio of Preer along with a complete discography. The $500.00 requested herein will go towards these ends along with licensing of the songs, which are: Some of these Days; Baby Won't You Please Come Home; One Sweet Letter From You; Looking for Sunshine (Walking Around in the Rain); Cock-a-Doodle (I'm Off My Noodle); Sunday; Birth of the Blues; .Lucky Day; Slow River; If You Can't Hold the Man You Love; Make Me Know; Sunday
Rec. 1926-1928 recording personnel includes: Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Red Nichols, Clarence Williams, Coleman Hawkins, Peter De Rose, Don Redman, Buster Bailey, Benny Morton, and Red Allen. note: Ellington's first RCA effort, in 1927, was as accompaniment for Preer.
Until now, there has never an album of this indisputably great recording star
PRODUCER: Bill Reed is a journalist and writer whose articles on show business, the arts and popular music have appeared in such publications as Rolling Stone, the San Francisco Examiner and International Documentary. He is a producer of jazz recordings for SSJ Records (Japan). There will almost certainly be a cost differential between the $500 this project hopes to raise and the bottom line cost. Reed will contribute those additional funds.
