Maxine Sullivan was born as Marietta Lillian Williams in Homestead, Pennsylvania, on May 13, 1911. As a teenager she sang on the radio in Pittsburgh with her uncle’s band.
With pianist-arranger Claude Thornhill as her musical director, she recorded “Stop! You’re Breaking My Heart” and “Gone with the Wind” on June 14, 1937. On August 6, her second session included two Scottish folk songs (“Loch Lomond” and “Annie Laurie”) that perfectly fit her style. “Loch Lomond” was such a big hit that it made Sullivan famous, and resulted in her recording other swinging versions of folk songs.
Although Sullivan grew tired of being stereotyped as a jazzy folk singer, the popularity of “Loch Lomond” kept her working for the next 20 years. She appeared in the 1938 Dick Powell film Going Places (singing “Mutiny in the Parlor” with Louis Armstrong) and in the 1939 Dorothy Lamour film St. Louis Blues.
Sullivan appeared regularly on the radio and recorded with Teddy Wilson and Benny Carter. Although “Loch Lomond” would be her only hit and the rise of bebop resulted in her being overshadowed by other performers, she kept busy. She had a successful solo act and performed in New York night clubs during 1946-52. She toured Great Britain in 1948 and the following year was in the short-lived TV series Uptown Jubilee.
Sullivan starred in the play Take a Giant Step in 1953, had a second tour of England in 1954, and was a regular at the Village Vanguard during 1952-56.
After pausing her music career in 1958, in 1966 Maxine Sullivan returned to performing. Listeners were happy to discover that her voice retained a youthful quality and her gentle style was unchanged from decades earlier.
There were appearances and recordings with the World’s Greatest Jazz Band, “songbook” albums of the music of Burton Lane, Jule Styne, and Harry Warren, and an interesting recording in which Sullivan sang the words of William Shakespeare. She appeared on Broadway in My Old Friends for which she received a Tony Award nomination.
A short time after her last public appearance and with a full schedule of upcoming engagements, Maxine Sullivan passed away on April 7, 1987, at the age of 76. – Scott Yanow
Since 1975 Scott Yanow has been a regular reviewer of albums in many jazz styles. He has written for many jazz and arts magazines, including JazzTimes, Jazziz, Down Beat, Cadence, CODA, and the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, and was the jazz editor for Record Review. He has written an in-depth biography on Dizzy Gillespie for AllMusic.com. He has authored 11 books on jazz, over 900 liner notes for CDs and over 20,000 reviews of jazz recordings.
Yanow was a contributor to and co-editor of the third edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz. He continues to write for Downbeat, Jazziz, the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, the Jazz Rag, the New York City Jazz Record and other publications.
