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Profile
Alberta Adams
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1999 KBA Award Winner
Achievement for Blues on the Internet
Presented by the Blues Foundation
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The grand dame of Detroit blues, Alberta Adams has been performing since the late 1930’s. Born in the early 1920’s in Indianapolis, Roberta Louise Osborne was raised by her aunt in Detroit. Growing up during the depression was not easy but Alberta gained a foothold in the booming Detroit entertainment industry as a dancer through her former husband Billy Adams. During one of her early shows she asked the manager of the club she was performing at if she could sing. He said "OK, but keep the dancing in." After she sang the only two songs she knew the manager, impressed with her strong voice, told her to learn some more tunes. She has been singing ever since. With a repertoire that consisted of jazz standards and the blues, Adams was soon creating quite a sensation. "I was hot, baby," Adams says with a laugh. "They’d bring in big name acts that couldn’t follow me." Word of her vocal prowess spread, and since 1945 Adams has performed with Duke Ellington, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson and T-Bone Walker as well as with most of the premier jazz, R&B and blues groups in Detroit during that era. Adams admits to no single influence on either her singing or dancing styles although Big Joe Turner holds a special place in her heart. "Big Joe Turner was IT," she says, "and Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan and LaVern Baker--those were my girls. But Nobody taught me nothin’ about singing. I taught myself." Like the singers she admires, Adams has a strong, rich voice with a tone and expressive quality that grabs a listener by the heart and won’t let go. Her two recent recordings, "Born With The Blues" (1999), and "Say Baby Say" (2000), can be found on Cannonball Records.
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