Lucius Venable "Lucky" Millinder (August 8, 1910 – September 28, 1966) was an American swing and
rhythm-and-blues
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predomina ...
bandleader. Although he could not read or write music, did not play an instrument and rarely sang, his showmanship and musical taste made his bands successful. His group was said to have been the greatest big band to play rhythm and blues, and gave work to a number of musicians who later became influential at the dawn of the
rock and roll
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock-n-roll, and rock 'n' roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from African ...
era. He was inducted into the
Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame
The Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame (AJHF) is an organization and museum in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. It was founded in 1978, and opened as museum on September 18, 1993, with a mission "to foster, encourage, educate, and cultivate a general ...
in 1986.
Early career
Millinder was born Lucius Venables in
Anniston, Alabama
Anniston is a city and the county seat of Calhoun County, Alabama, Calhoun County in Alabama, United States, and is one of two urban centers/principal cities of and included in the Anniston–Oxford metropolitan area, Anniston–Oxford Metropo ...
, United States. He took the surname Millinder as a child, and was raised in
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
. In the 1920s, he worked in clubs, ballrooms, and theatres in Chicago as a master of ceremonies and dancer. He first fronted a band in 1931 for an
RKO
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, is an American film production and distribution company, historically one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Kei ...
theater tour, and in 1932 took over the leadership of Doc Crawford's orchestra in
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater ...
. He also freelanced elsewhere.
In 1933, he took a band to Europe, playing residencies in
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo ( ; ; or colloquially ; , ; ) is an official administrative area of Monaco, specifically the Ward (country subdivision), ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is located. Informally, the name also refers to ...
and
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
. He returned to New York to take over the leadership of the
Mills Blue Rhythm Band
The Mills Blue Rhythm Band was an American big band active during the 1930s.
History
The band was formed in New York City in 1930 by drummer Willie Lynch as the Blue Rhythm Band, and then briefly operated as the Coconut Grove Orchestra. Irvi ...
in 1934, which included
Henry "Red" Allen
Henry James "Red" Allen Jr. (January 7, 1908 – April 17, 1967) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist whose playing has been described by Joachim-Ernst Berendt and others as the first to fully incorporate the innovations of Louis Armstr ...
,
Charlie Shavers
Charles James Shavers (August 3, 1920 – July 8, 1971) was an American jazz trumpeter who played with Dizzy Gillespie, Nat King Cole, Roy Eldridge, Johnny Dodds, Jimmie Noone, Sidney Bechet, Midge Williams, Tommy Dorsey, and Billie Holiday. He ...
,
Harry "Sweets" Edison
Harry "Sweets" Edison (October 10, 1915 – July 27, 1999) was an American jazz trumpeter and a member of the Count Basie Orchestra. His most important contribution was as a Hollywood studio musician, whose muted trumpet can be heard backi ...
and
J. C. Higginbotham
J. (Jack) C. Higginbotham (May 11, 1906 – May 26, 1973) was an American jazz trombonist. His playing was robust and Swung note, swinging.
Biography
He was born in Social Circle, Georgia, United States, and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. In t ...
Bill Doggett
William Ballard Doggett (February 16, 1916 – November 13, 1996) was an American pianist and organist. He began his career playing swing music before transitioning into rhythm and blues. Best known for his instrumental compositions "Honky Tonk ...
to front Doggett's group. By 1940, Millinder had formed a completely new orchestra, which included Doggett and the drummer "Panama" Francis. Around this time he discovered the established gospel singer and guitarist
Rosetta Tharpe
Sister Rosetta Tharpe (born Rosetta Nubin, March 20, 1915 – October 9, 1973) was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. She gained popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with her gospel recordings, characterized by a unique mixture of spirit ...
, with whom his ensembles performed for many years, and first recorded with on four cuts for
Decca Records
Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis after his acquisition of a gramophone manufacturer, The Decca Gramophone Company. It set up an American subsidiary under the Decca name, which bec ...
in 1938.
He established a residency at New York's
Savoy Ballroom
The Savoy Ballroom was a large ballroom for music and public dancing located at 596 Lenox Avenue, between 140th and 141st Streets in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.
Lenox Avenue was the main thoroughfare through upper Harlem ...
, and won a contract with Decca.
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie ( ; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improvisation, improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy El ...
Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...
chart
A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphics, graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can repres ...
and number 14 on the pop chart in 1942. The follow-up records "Apollo Jump" and "Sweet Slumber" were also big hits, with vocals by Trevor Bacon.
By the mid-1940s, the band was drifting towards what came to be known as
rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predomina ...
. Other band members around this time included the saxophonists
Bull Moose Jackson
Benjamin Clarence "Bull Moose" Jackson (April 22, 1919 – July 31, 1989) Allmusic biography Accessed January 2008. was an American blues and rhythm-and-blues singer and saxophonist, who was most successful in the late 1940s. He is considered ...
,
Tab Smith
Talmadge "Tab" Smith (January 11, 1909 – August 17, 1971) was an American swing and rhythm and blues alto saxophonist. He is best remembered for the tracks " Because of You" and "Pretend". He worked with Count Basie, the Mills Rhythm Bo ...
and
Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis
Edward F. Davis (March 2, 1922 – November 3, 1986), known professionally as Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.
It is unclear how he acquired the moniker "Lockjaw" (later shortened to "Jaws"): it is either said that ...
and the pianist
Sir Charles Thompson
Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Thompson, 1st Baronet (c.1740 – 17 March 1799) was a British Royal Navy officer. After long service in the Seven Years' War, American Revolutionary War and French Revolutionary Wars, he was second in command at the b ...
. In 1944, Millinder recruited the singer
Wynonie Harris
Wynonie Harris (August 24, 1915 – June 14, 1969) was an American blues shouter best remembered as a singer of upbeat songs, featuring humorous, often ribald lyrics. He had fifteen Top 10 hits between 1946 and 1952. Harris is attributed by ...
, and their recording of "
Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well "Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well" is a 1945 song performed by Lucky Millinder and His Orchestra. With Wynonie Harris on vocals, "Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well" became Lucky Millinder's most successful release on both the pop and R&B charts. ...
" became the group's biggest hit in 1945, staying at number 1 on the R&B chart for eight weeks and also reaching number 7 on the US pop chart. After Harris left for a solo career, Millinder followed up with another hit, "Shorty's Got to Go", on which he took lead vocals. Soon afterwards,
Ruth Brown
Ruth Alston Brown (; January 12, 1928 – November 17, 2006) was an American singer-songwriter and actress, sometimes referred to as the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Queen of R&B". She was noted for bringing a popular music, pop music ...
became the band's singer for a short period before her own solo career took off.
Towards the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
and into the post-war period, the economic situation for touring ensembles (including gas-rationing and entertainment taxes) began to favor smaller bands (such as
Louis Jordan
Louis Thomas Jordan (July 8, 1908 – February 4, 1975) was an American saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and bandleader who was popular from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "Honorific nicknames in popular music, the King ...
's), and limited the number of appearances orchestras such as Millinder's could command. In the late 1940s, the band toured all the larger R&B auditoriums, although it had few chart hits for several years.
In 1949, the band left Decca Records and joined
RCA Victor
RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records (its former longtime rival), Arista Records and Epic ...
Big John Greer
John Marshall "Big John" Greer (November 21, 1923 – May 12, 1972) - accessed September 2011 was an American and
Annisteen Allen
Annisteen Allen (November 11, 1920 – August 10, 1992) was an American blues and jazz singer.
Born Ernestine Letitia Allen in Champaign, Illinois, United States, her first recordings were made in 1945, and included "Miss Annie's Blues" and ...
. The band's last big hit was "I'm Waiting Just for You", with Allen, in 1951, which reached number 2 on the R&B chart and number 19 on the pop chart. A year earlier, Millinder's track "Silent George" had become a
dirty blues
Dirty blues (also known as bawdy blues) is a form of blues music that deals with socially taboo and obscene subjects, often referring to sexual acts and drug use. Because of the sometimes graphic subject matter, such music was often banned from rad ...
hit.
Later years
By 1952, Millinder began working as a radio DJ. He continued touring with his band, but his style was falling out of favor, and the band's history of many personnel changes began to affect its sound. In 1954, he took over the leadership of the house band at the
Apollo Theater
The Apollo Theater (formerly the Hurtig & Seamon's New Theatre; also Apollo Theatre or 125th Street Apollo Theatre) is a multi-use Theater (structure), theater at 253 125th Street (Manhattan), West 125th Street in the Harlem neighborhood of U ...
for a while. He effectively retired from performing around 1955, although his final recordings were in 1960.
He became active in music publishing and in public relations for a whiskey distillery. He died of a liver ailment in New York City in September 1966.
Selected discography
LP compilations
* ''Lucky Days 1941–1945'' (MCA 1319, 1980)
* ''Let It Roll'' (MCA 1357, 1982)
* ''Shorty's Got to Go'' (Juke Box Lil 609, 1984)
* ''Let It Roll Again'' (Jukebox Lil 613, 1986)
CD compilations
Every recording (all Decca, RCA Victor, and King) by Lucky Millinder & His Orchestra is included in this four-volume series from the Classics reissue label.
* ''The Chronological Lucky Millinder & His Orchestra 1941–1942'' (Classics 712, 1993)
* ''The Chronological Lucky Millinder & His Orchestra 1943–1947'' (Classics 1026, 1998)
* ''The Chronological Lucky Millinder & His Orchestra 1947–1950'' (Classics 1173, 2001)
* ''The Chronological Lucky Millinder & His Orchestra 1951–1960'' (Classics 1460, 2008)
* ''Apollo Jump'' (Proper PVCD-115, 2002), 2-CD set
* ''Jukebox Hits 1942–1951'' (Acrobat ACMCD-4029, 2005)
* '' The Very Best of Lucky Millinder'' (all King recordings) (Collectables COL-2898, 2005)
Preservation
Performances of Lucky Millinder & His Orchestra were preserved and restored by the
UCLA Film & Television Archive
The UCLA Film & Television Archive is a visual arts organization focused on the preservation, study, and appreciation of film and television, based at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
As a nonprofit exhibition venue, the archive ...
from 16mm prints. Restoration funding was provided by a grant from the GRAMMY Museum®. The restoration had its world premiere at the 2024 UCLA Festival of Preservation.