*** Welcome to piglix ***

Corky Hale


Corky Hale (born Merrilyn Hecht in Freeport, Illinois on July 3, 1936) has been a working jazz musician since the late 1950s. As an in-demand session player, she has traveled across the United States and throughout Europe, playing harp, piano and flute, and singing. In addition to her musical resume, Hale has been a theater producer, political activist, a restaurateur and even the owner of a once-famous Los Angeles women's clothing store, "Corky Hale."

Corky was raised in a small midwestern town where she been playing piano at the age of three. At seven, she was enrolled in classical piano studies at the Chicago Conservatory. It was here that she also became interested in the harp, and a life in music was born. In addition to her classical studies, she learned to love and play show tunes and standards, and soon embraced the jazz sounds of Stan Kenton.

At age 16, Corky's parents enrolled her in Stephens College, a school for young ladies, for her last year of high school. After graduation, Corky announced to her parents that she was moving to Hollywood to be a musician, whereupon her father immediately sent her to nearby University of Wisconsin–Madison. But it was too late; she’d been bitten by the "show biz bug," and after one year, she announced that now she was definitely going to Hollywood. A compromise was reached: Her parents would drive her to Los Angeles and enroll her at UCLA, where she would live in the sorority house. However, life as a student lasted only a few weeks. Through a friend, the opportunity arose to play harp on the "Freddie Martin Show." Her career had begun.

Since the 1950s, Hale has amassed a long list of performance and recording credentials, including sessions, TV shows and concerts with Liberace, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Elkie Brooks, Tony Bennett, Billie Holiday, Harry James, Peggy Lee, James Brown, Spike Jones, George Michael and Björk, to name a few.


...
Wikipedia

...