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Update: Since it's Sunday night, it's slowed down a bit. We're still at 3/4 of the way to our goal and the deadline is getting uncomfortably close (Tuesday). I can't thank those of you enough who have donated, and donated whatever you could. You have made a huge difference. But we're not quite there yet and there's still a little ways left to go before we can breathe again. It's a nail-biter, I will admit. But I have faith we'll get through this crisis, and come out the other end. If you haven't made a donation yet, please consider whatever amount you can afford. I know these are tough times - this Fundraiser is proof of that right now. I need your help. We're slowly getting through this and you're making a huge difference. Thank you all for your help so far - I could not have come this far without you.

If you've just discovered Newstalgia for the first time (and you're scrolling through the 3,000+ posts since we got started in 2009), you'll notice the weekends are mostly made up of music; a lot of different kind of music. The weekends at Newstalgia are usually reserved for Popular Culture and flat-out Culture. Live rock concerts from the 1960's all the way to last week. Jazz Concerts (like this one) and a thing called Weekend Gramophone, which originally stared out as a place to play Classical 78's, but which has wound up in recent months as a sort of showcase for early radio broadcasts of some rare and seldom heard performances from the world of Classical music. The weekends at Newstalgia are rather eclectic and it sort of works that way.

Tonight it's a live concert, broadcast by NET (the forerunner to PBS) on July 5, 1970 featuring Jazz-Blues singer Joe Williams in one of his typically great concerts, but this time for a TV audience.

It's the audio-only portion of the concert that we're playing today. And if you've never heard Joe Williams before, or only casually heard about him in connection with Count Basie, now's your chance to hear why he was such a popular singer, among not only the audience, but with other singers.

Sadly, TV ran on a strict time schedule and the half hour program came to an abrupt end, just as Williams was getting ready to wrap up and truly wonderful set. So it fades out at the end.

Still, a great concert by one of the legendary figures of the Jazz-Blues contingent.

Enjoy.

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Hunter, born in Mississippi, raised in Chicago and migrating to New York where she landed a contract with RCA in the early 1950's and turned in four highly regarded albums for the RCA and subsidiary VIK labels.

Publicized primarily as a "torch singer", Hunter had a very good following on the club and lounge circuit throughout the 1950's and early 1960's.

But as tastes and venues changed, and as the vagaries of the music business did what they usually do, Hunter slowly faded from public view. Surfacing only occasionally, such as this guest spot on the Pre-PBS, NET-TV program Jazz Alley, broadcast on June 4, 1970.

A wonderful singer performing to a very appreciative audience, Lurlean Hunter certainly deserves some re-evaluation. At least some serious re-discovery of a memorable back catalog.

In the meantime though, here she is in a live setting.

Technical note: the transmitter for this broadcast got a little crazy about two minutes into the first song and it gets noisy for about 20 seconds. It goes away and the rest of the broadcast sounds fine. Worry not.

Dig, you must.