Cab Calloway’s Last Interview (February 23, 1993)

Cabell Calloway III (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994) was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was a regular performer at the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he became a popular vocalist of the swing era. His niche of mixing jazz and vaudeville won him acclaim during a career that spanned over 65 years.[2]

Calloway was a master of energetic scat singing and led one of the most popular dance bands in the United States from the early 1930s to the late 1940s. His band included trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Jonah Jones, and Adolphus "Doc" Cheatham, saxophonists Ben Webster and Leon "Chu" Berry, guitarist Danny Barker, bassist Milt Hinton, and drummer Cozy Cole.[3]

Calloway had several hit records in the 1930s and 1940s, becoming the first African-American musician to sell one million copies of a single record. He became known as the "Hi-de-ho" man of jazz for his most famous song, "Minnie the Moocher", originally recorded in 1931. He reached the Billboard charts in five consecutive decades (1930s–1970s).[4] Calloway also made several stage, film, and television appearances until his death in 1994 at the age of 86. He had roles in Stormy Weather (1943), Porgy and Bess (1953), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), and Hello Dolly! (1967). His career enjoyed a marked resurgence from his appearance in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers.

Calloway was the first African-American to have a nationally syndicated radio program.[5] In 1993, Calloway received the National Medal of Arts from the United States Congress.[6] He posthumously received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. His song "Minnie the Moocher" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, and added to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry in 2019.[7] Three years later in 2022, the National Film Registry selected his home films for preservation as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant films".[8] He is also inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame and the International Jazz Hall of Fame.

Cabell Calloway III was born in Rochester, New York, on December 25, 1907, to an African American family.[9] His mother, Martha Eulalia Reed, was a Morgan State College graduate, teacher, and church organist. His father, Cabell Calloway Jr., graduated from Lincoln University of Pennsylvania in 1898,[10][11] and worked as a lawyer and in real estate. The family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1919.[12] Soon after, his father died and his mother remarried to John Nelson Fortune.[13]

Calloway grew up in the West Baltimore neighborhood of Druid Hill. He often skipped school to earn money by selling newspapers, shining shoes, and cooling down horses at the Pimlico racetrack where he developed an interest in racing and gambling on horse races.[14][15] After he was caught playing dice on the church steps, his mother sent him to Downingtown Industrial and Agricultural School in 1921, a reform school run by his mother's uncle in Chester County, Pennsylvania.[15]

Calloway resumed hustling when he returned to Baltimore and worked as a caterer while he improved his studies in school.[15] He began private vocal lessons in 1922, and studied music throughout his formal schooling. Despite his parents' and teachers' disapproval of jazz, he began performing in nightclubs in Baltimore. His mentors included drummer Chick Webb and pianist Johnny Jones. Calloway joined his high school basketball team, and in his senior year he started playing professional basketball with the Baltimore Athenians, a team in the Negro Professional Basketball League.[16] He graduated from Frederick Douglass High School in 1925.[12][17]

In 1927, Calloway joined his older sister, Blanche Calloway, on tour for the popular black musical revue Plantation Days.[13] His sister became an accomplished bandleader before him, and he often credited her as his inspiration for entering show business.[18] Calloway's mother wanted him to be a lawyer like his father, so once the tour ended he enrolled at Crane College in Chicago, but he was more interested in singing and entertaining. While at Crane he refused the opportunity to play basketball for the Harlem Globetrotters to pursue a singing career.[15]

In 1952, Calloway was arrested in Leesburg, Virginia on his way to the race track in Charles Town, West Virginia. He was charged with speeding and attempted bribery of a policeman.[71]

Death
On June 12, 1994, Calloway suffered a stroke at his home in Westchester County, New York.[58] He died five months later from pneumonia on November 18, 1994, at the age of 86, at a nursing home in Hockessin, Delaware.[23] He was survived by his wife, five daughters, and seven grandsons. Calloway was buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.[14][3]