Vivian Carter

Vivian Carter (March 25, 1921 – June 12, 1989) was an African American record company executive who was a founder of Vee-Jay Records with her future husband, Jimmy Bracken. Carter was also a Gary, Indiana, and Chicago, Illinois, radio disc jockey. Vee Jay, an independent record label, became the first successful black-owned recording company in the United States. It released original music from artists of the 1950s and 1960s in a variety of genres, including rhythm and blues, doo-wop, pop, and gospel.

Carter was born in Tunica, Mississippi, and moved with her parents to Gary, Indiana, when she was a child. She graduated from Gary's Roosevelt High School in 1939. Carter excelled at public speaking, theater, and chorus. A classmate and longtime friend described her as a fun-loving extrovert with "a rich alto voice."

After graduation Carter took classes at a business college before becoming a clerical worker for the U.S. Army's Quartermaster Corps during World War II. After a year in Washington, D.C., she transferred to Chicago to be closer to family and friends.

In 1944 Carter met Jimmy Bracken, who became her business partner. They were married on December 16, 1953. Bracken died in 1972.

In 1948 Carton won a talent contest conducted by Al Benson, a disc jockey (dee jay) at Chicago's WGES radio station. The prize was an opportunity to host a fifteen-minute segment on WGES, which launched her radio career. Carter worked at WGES for three months, but struggled financially and return to Gary to work in a local millinery shop until she landed a job at WJOB (AM) in Hammond, Indiana. In 1952 Carter moved to WGRY and in 1954 to WWCA in Gary, where she hosted the "Livin' with Vivian" show six nights a week. Carter aired a mix of musical genres, including blues, gospel, jazz, and what became known as doo-wop.

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