Rita Cann professionally known as Rita Lawrence (24 January 1911 – 4 May 2001) was a British Black pianist and singer.

Life

Lawrence was born on 24 January 1911 at Purley, Croydon to Albert Sam Cann, a

Fanti Fanti is an Italian surname. Notable people with this name include: * Bartolomeo Fanti (1428–1495), beatified Italian Carmelite priest * Fausto Fanti (1978–2014), Brazilian actor, comedian and musician * Franco Fanti (1924–2007), Italian Olymp ...

merchant, and his White English wife Emma Elizabeth, née Dowsett. Her father organised appearances at

Wigmore Hall The Wigmore Hall is a concert hall at 36 Wigmore Street, in west London. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and opened in 1901 as the Bechstein Hall; it is considered to have particularly good building acoustics, acoustics. It specialis ...

of performers including Dorothy Callender and

Paul Robeson Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, actor, professional American football, football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for h ...

.Oral History of Jazz
Val Kilmer, BBC, Retrieved 18 February 2017 She grew up in

Beddington Beddington is a suburban settlement in the London Borough of Sutton on the boundary with the London Borough of Croydon. Beddington is formed from a village of the same name which until early the 20th century still included land which became ...

and

Streatham Streatham ( ) is a district in south London, England. Centred south of Charing Cross, it lies mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, with some parts extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth. Streatham was in Surrey ...

, Austria and Germany, where her father was arrested for fraud. It is said that Lawrence argued her own way into a judge's chambers at the age of fourteen to plead her father's case. His maternal grandmother had encouraged her daughter to marry Albert because she valued interracial marriages. Her grandmother was involved with a group in Dulwich who offered help to Africans with accommodation. Lawrence's father dealt in tobacco, cocoa and mahogany and while visiting Britain he found the Dulwich group and his future wife.Val Wilmer, ‘Cann, Rita Evelyn (1911–2001)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Jan 2005; online edn, Jan 200
accessed 17 Feb 2017
/ref> She moved to London in 1934 and during the war she would play at bottle parties in Soho bars. She would have like to have been a concert pianist but she obtained work as a singer or a pianist where she was an unusual black performer. She danced with

Adelaide Hall Adelaide Louise Hall (20 October 1901 – 7 November 1993) was an American-born UK-based jazz singer and entertainer. Her career spanned more than 70 years from 1921 until her death. Early in her career, she was a major figure in the Harlem Ren ...

and

Fats Waller Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller (May 21, 1904 – December 15, 1943) was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, and singer. His innovations in the Harlem stride style laid much of the basis for modern jazz piano. A widely popular star ...

. Her name was changed at the suggestion of

Fela Sowande Chief Olufela Obafunmilayo "Fela" Sowande MBE (29 May 1905 – 13 March 1987) was a Nigerian musician and composer. Considered the father of modern Nigerian art music, Sowande is perhaps the most internationally known African composer of works ...

who included her in his ''Jubilee Singers''. She then sang with

Rudolph Dunbar Rudolph Dunbar (26 November 1907 – 10 June 1988) was a Guyanese conductor, clarinetist, and composer, as well as being a jazz musician of note in the 1920s.Ivy Benson Ivy Benson (11 November 1913 – 6 May 1993) was an English musician and bandleader, who led an all-female swing band. Benson and her band gained prominence in the 1940s, headlining variety theatres and topping the bill at the London Palladium, ...

. She met the Cuban Don Marino Barreto (1907–1995) and he encouraged her career. He persuaded her that she should train again at the Guildhall School of Music and in return he would teach her Latin-American rhythm. She played piano in his band and they became a couple. In 1946 she formed her own Havana Sextet which for a time included the trumpeter

Eddie Calvert Albert Edward Calvert (15 March 1922 – 7 August 1978) was an English trumpeter successful in the 1950s. Between 1953 and 1958 he achieved seven instrumental hits on the UK Singles Chart, including the two chart-toppers " Oh, Mein Papa" in ...

. They were resident at a London's Thameside Bray Hotel with music arranged by her brother Lawrence. She appeared on British television in Fela Sowande's choir in a programme called "Club Ebony". Another of Fela's brothers, Tunji Sowande, was a barrister but he was also a baritone and they appeared together with Rita supplying a chic presentation and her piano accompaniment to Sowande's singing. Rita gave up being a professional musician and became a telephonist at the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. In her spare time she continued to perform in charity performances. She continued her friendship with Marino Barreto and they lived together for a few years in Sweden. She died in May 2001 in Cardiff.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:LAwrence, Rita 1911 births 2001 deaths 20th-century Black British women musicians 20th-century British women pianists 20th-century English women musicians English people of Ghanaian descent 20th-century English women pianists Fante people Musicians from the London Borough of Croydon Musicians from the London Borough of Lambeth Musicians from the London Borough of Sutton People from Beddington People from Purley, London People from Streatham