I Want a Man

Annisteen Allen sings this blues number very well in this soundie.

Soundies were a short subject that can be considered ancestral to the sort of music videos that play on MTV. They were meant to be played on a device called a Mills Panoram, which was a sort of video jukebox that might be found in bars in the early 1940s. You put in a dime, and got one of ten songs with performers syncing along to the recording. Mills produced an estimated ten a week for more than seven years, and there were several competitors. Major musical talent got their start performing for the system.

Miss Allen's first recordings were made in 1945, and she went solo in the 1960s. She died in 1992, age 71.