Laurie Allyn was an American jazz singer and former model. She is best known for her sole album ''Paradise'', which was recorded in 1957 and amassed critical acclaim after a belated release in 2004.

Early life and career

Allyn was born into a musical family and raised in

Waco, Texas Waco ( ) is a city in and the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and Interstate 35, I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin, Texas, Austin. The city had a U.S. census estimated 2024 popul ...

. Upon coming of age in the mid-1950s, Allyn began to pursue a career as a singer, initially performing with local groups in the Waco area. She soon relocated to the

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

area. While performing at events near

Scott Air Force Base Scott Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base in St. Clair County, Illinois, near Belleville and O'Fallon, east-southeast of downtown St. Louis. Originally Scott Field, it was one of 32 Air Service training camps established af ...

, Allyn auditioned for songwriter

Tommy Wolf Thomas Joseph Wolf Jr. (1925 – 1979) was an American composer and piano player. He was best known for his songwriting collaboration with Fran Landesman. Life Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Wolf met Fran Landesman while playing piano at the Jeffers ...

and began performing as house singer at the nightclub The Crystal Palace, owned by

Fran Landesman Fran Landesman (born Frances Deitsch; October 21, 1927 – July 23, 2011) was an American lyricist and Poetry, poet. She grew up in New York City and lived for years in St. Louis, Missouri, where her husband Jay Landesman operated the Crystal Pal ...

, with Wolf accompanying Allyn on piano. Allyn was the first singer to perform Landesman and Wolf's song " Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" in public; the song would later become a

standard Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object ...

recorded by many artists. In 1954, Allyn was hired and brought to Chicago to work as house singer at the nightclub The Cloister Inn. While working at the Cloister Inn, she met singer

Tony Bennett Anthony Dominick Benedetto (August 3, 1926 – July 21, 2023), known professionally as Tony Bennett, was an American jazz and traditional pop singer. He received many accolades, including 20 Grammy Awards, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, ...

for a breakfast date, and discussed her then-accompanist, Ralph Sharon, with him. The conversation led Bennett to hire the pianist away from her. Ralph Sharon would go on to perform with Bennett for over forty years. By 1956, Allyn had retired from performing, and had married Bill Doherty, part owner of the nightclub The Black Orchid. In 1957, Allyn was performing again at the nightclub The Nocturne, where the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...

'' reported on the popularity of her "throaty, seated-on-a-piano, moody

Julie London Julie London (born Julie Peck; September 26, 1926 – October 18, 2000) was an American singer and actress whose career spanned more than 40 years. A torch song, torch singer noted for her contralto voice, London recorded over thirty album ...

-ish" live performances.

Mode Records album

Recording

Red Clyde, founder of

Mode Records Mode Records is an American record label in New York City that concentrates on contemporary classical music and other forms of avant-garde music. The label was founded by Brian Brandt in 1984, with a goal of releasing music composed by John Cage. ...

, heard Allyn sing at The Nocturne in 1957 and invited her to Los Angeles to record an album with the label. She visited Los Angeles to record the album at

Radio Recorders Radio Recorders, Inc. was an American recording studio located in Los Angeles, California. During the 1940s and 1950s, Radio Recorders was one of the largest independent recording studios in the world. Notable musicians recorded at Radio Recorde ...

in early October 1957. The recording engineer was

Bones Howe Dayton Burr "Bones" Howe (born March 18, 1933) is an American record producer and recording engineer who scored a string of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, often of the sunshine pop genre, starting in 1965 with The Turtles (band), the Turtles cover o ...

, and the players included conductor

Marty Paich Martin Louis Paich (January 23, 1925 – August 12, 1995) was an American pianist, composer, arranger, record producer, music director, and conductor. As a musician and arranger he worked with jazz musicians Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Kento ...

, guitarist

Al Viola Alfred Viola (June 16, 1919 – February 21, 2007) was an American jazz guitarist who worked with Frank Sinatra for 25 years. He played the mandolin on the soundtrack of the film ''The Godfather''. Biography Viola grew up in an Italian famil ...

, bassist

Red Mitchell Keith Moore "Red" Mitchell (September 20, 1927 – November 8, 1992) was an American jazz double-bassist, composer, lyricist, and poet. Biography Mitchell was born in New York City. His younger brother, Whitey Mitchell, also became a jazz ...

, drummer

Mel Lewis Melvin Sokoloff (May 10, 1929 – February 2, 1990), known professionally as Mel Lewis, was an American jazz drummer, session musician, professor, and author. He received fourteen Grammy Award nominations. Biography Early years Lewis was ...

, trumpeter

Don Fagerquist Donald Alton Fagerquist (February 6, 1927 – January 23, 1974) was a small group, big band, and studio jazz trumpet player from the West Coast of the United States. Career Fagerquist was a featured soloist with several major bands, including Ma ...

, and the members of the Hollywood String Quartet. Mode planned to bring Allyn back to Los Angeles after the album's release, when she was scheduled to perform on ''

The Steve Allen Show ''The Steve Allen Show'' is an American variety show hosted by Steve Allen from June 1956 to June 1960 on NBC, from September 1961 to December 1961 on ABC,

'' and audition for a television show at

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

. However, a short time after the recording of the album, Mode Records went into receivership because the company was overextended financially and was unable to meet financial obligations to the recording studio and musicians. The album was not released. After the recording of the album, Allyn returned to Texas to care for her ailing mother and then went back to Chicago to work as a model. But she did not pursue singing further.

Release by VSOP

In 2004, Allyn began researching the whereabouts of the masters of her album, which by then were owned by the archive label VSOP Records and were being considered for release. Half of the masters survived, but the remaining tracks were salvaged from a dub of the masters.

, the engineer of Allyn's session, mastered the album for release. The album was released as ''Paradise'' by VSOP Records that year. At AllMusic, Scott Yanow gave the album four and a half out of five stars, stating, "her choice of notes is excellent and she draws listeners into the music." Paul Clatworthy described the album as "captivating" in the Robert Farnon Society's ''Journal Into Melody'', adding, "Laurie's bell-like diction fits the songs so well they could have all been written just for her." The album was submitted for consideration for a

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious ...

. ''Paradise'' was reissued in 2007 for Japan by the record label Muzak and received favorable reviews in the magazines ''Swing Journal'' and ''Jazz Life''. The Muzak edition of the album was utilized by author Wojciech Pacuła to test

high fidelity High fidelity (hi-fi or, rarely, HiFi) is the high-quality reproduction of sound. It is popular with audiophiles and home audio enthusiasts. Ideally, high-fidelity equipment has inaudible noise and distortion, and a flat (neutral, uncolored) ...

equipment in the Polish magazine ''High Fidelity'' and in the hi-fi website 6moons.com.

Personal life

According to her daughter Carrie Pierce, Laurie Allyn died on February 11, 2022.

Discography

* ''Paradise'' (VSOP, 2004)

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allyn, Laurie Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American women jazz singers American jazz singers American torch singers Singers from Chicago Jazz musicians from Illinois 21st-century American women musicians