Swing Shift: "All-Girl" Bands of the 1940s

by Sherrie Tucker

Overview

The forgotten history of the "all-girl" big bands of the World War II era takes center stage in Sherrie Tucker's Swing Shift. American demand for swing skyrocketed with the onslaught of war as millions-isolated from loved ones-sought diversion, comfort, and social contact through music and dance. Although all-female jazz and dance bands had existed since the 1920s, now hundreds of such groups, both African American and white, barnstormed ballrooms, theaters, dance halls, military installations, and makeshift USO stages on the home front and abroad.
Filled with firsthand accounts of more than a hundred women who performed during this era and complemented by thorough-and eye-opening-archival research, Swing Shift not only offers a history of this significant aspect of American society and culture but also examines how and why whole bands of dedicated and talented women musicians were dropped from-or never inducted into-our national memory. Tucker's nuanced presentation reveals who these remarkable women were, where and when they began to play music, and how they navigated a sometimes wild and bumpy road-including their experiences with gas and rubber rationing, travel restrictions designed to prioritize transportation for military needs, and Jim Crow laws and other prejudices. She explains how the expanded opportunities brought by the war, along with sudden increased publicity, created the illusion that all female musicians-no matter how experienced or talented-were "Swing Shift Maisies," 1940s slang for the substitutes for the "real" workers (or musicians) who were away in combat. Comparing the working conditions and public representations of women musicians with figures such as Rosie the Riveter, WACs, USO hostesses, pin-ups, and movie stars, Tucker chronicles the careers of such bands as the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, Phil Spitalny's Hours of Charm, The Darlings of Rhythm, and the Sharon Rogers All-Girl Band.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822328179
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	05/23/2001
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	426
Product dimensions:	9.20(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Sherrie Tucker is Assistant Professor of Women's Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. A longtime jazz fan, she has conducted oral histories for the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program, writes a column called "Jazzwomen Jam" for Jazz Now Magazine, and was formerly a jazz radio announcer in San Francisco.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: “It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t in the History Books”


I Playing the Changes of World War II

1. Working the Swing Shift: Effects of World War II on “All-Girl” Bands

2. “Hours of Charm” with Phil Spitalny

3. Extracurricular Activities with the Prairie View Co-eds

II Road Hazards

4. Surveillance and Survival in the Jim Crow South

5. Internationalism and the Sweethearts of Rhythm

6. The Darlings of Rhythm: On the Road and Ready to Run

III USO-Camp Shows

7. Female Big Bands, Male Mass Audiences: Gendered Performances in a Theater of War

8. Battles of a “Sophisticated Lady”: Ada Leonard and the USO

9. “And, Fellas, They’re American Girls,”: On the Road with the Sharon Rogers All-Girl Band

Conclusion: Post-War Changes, Familiar Refrains

Notes

Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"Swing Shift is a long-overdue historical corrective and a compelling read--a thoroughly remarkable achievement."--David Hajdu, author of Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn

"Swing Shift is the most original, thought-provoking jazz book written in the last thirty years. Sherrie Tucker's virtuoso performance not only tears down the bars of silence that have kept women musicians invisible, but she reveals how this silence works to uphold the race and gender mythologies that we know as the history of the 'swing era.' After prying open our eyes and ears, Tucker takes us on a funky, surprising, inspiring musical journey that will drive all jazzheads back to the woodshed. And if that's not enough, as a writer this 'girl' can swing off the page!"--Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Yo' Mama's Disfunktional! Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America

"Sherrie Tucker's beautifully written and meticulously researched book on women jazz bands introduces us to a generation of awesome musicians, whose stories raise provocative questions about the impact of race, class, gender, and sexuality on dominant conceptions of jazz history. In suggesting new ways of thinking about the place of women jazz musicians in recent U.S. history, Swing Shift boldly challenges our contemporary understandings of the unruly politics of culture. "--Angela Davis

From the Publisher

Armed with astounding archival research and firsthand accounts from more than 100 female musicians, Sherrie Tucker . . . sets the record straight in Swing Shift, which chronicles the careers of such bands as the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, Phil Spitalny’s Hours of Charm, the Darlings of Rhythm, and the Prairie View Co-Eds. . . . Tucker traces the experiences of these women from loving the music and wowing the fellas to sexual harassment and travels of a racially mixed group through a Jim Crow South.

Publishers Weekly

Tucker’s accounts of these all-girl bands are noteworthy, especially when compared with major swing jazz histories by male authors who tend to diminish or dismiss contributions of female musicians.
—America’s Jazz Times

Nancy Ann Lee

Precious little has been written about these women who were an integral part of early-1940s America—which is what makes Sherrie Tucker’s Swing Shift so invaluable. In this entertaining, exhaustively researched book, Tucker restores to glory . . . all the jumpin’, jivin’, and wailin’ women who came to be known as ‘Swing Shift Maisies.’
—Boston Globe

Renee Graham

Tucker has done a neat job of entwining insightful analysis with the voices of some endearing elderly women recounting both fond and painful memories. . . . The stories raise multifaceted issues of gender, race, beauty, sexuality, work, music, war and more. Tucker manages to thoroughly examine them while entertaining readers with compelling tales of high heels and high notes, glamour and gall.
—The News and Record

Joya Wesley

Swing Shift moves along with the verve and rich beat of a jazz ensemble. Of course, the material is so colorful, so dazzling, that you really couldn’t help but have a compelling story to tell.
—The Fayetteville

Roy Parker, Jr.

Tucker, who teaches women's studies at Hobart and William Smith colleges and writes the "Jazzwomen Jam" column for Jazz Now magazine, masterfully shows how instrumental "all-girl" bands were in changing social, sexual, racial, and economic attitudes toward women. In the 1930s and 1940s, Phil Spitalny's incredibly commercially successful, all-woman "Hour of Charm" Orchestra, she contends, "introduced thousands upon thousands of listeners to the concept that women were capable of playing band instruments." The group also, unfortunately, instilled in listeners the "image of billowing dresses and cultured white womanhood"--a stereotype that "jazzier" and African American/multiracial groups like the Darlings of Rhythm and the International Sweethearts of Rhythm had to work hard to break. Tucker interviewed scores of these musicians (many still alive and swinging), attended the Sharon Rogers All-Girl Band's 1993 reunion, and documented their experiences of touring, recording, and dealing with the chauvinstic musicians' union and armed forces. Marriage to another musician, she relates, often meant dealing with violent jealousy: one woman came home to find that her husband had burned her band memorabilia in the backyard. "Only God can make a tree and only men can play good jazz," prominent jazz author George Simon wrote at the time, but Tucker proves that so talented were "all-girl" bands that most men wallowed in denial. An essential purchase for academic, public, and music libraries.--William G. Kenz, Moorhead State Univ., MN Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

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