Helen Forrest(1917-1999)

Brunette Helen Forrest was born Helen Fogel in Atlantic City, New Jersey. She loved singing from early childhood and keenly listened to recordings by all the major female jazz and blues vocalists of the day. At the age of ten, Helen competed in a dance marathon and sang with her brother's band in Washington, D.C. By the time she reached her mid-teens, was a salaried employee of CBS radio and WNEW (New York), singing under the pseudonyms Bonnie Blue, Blue Lady and Marlene. In 1937, she was invited for a guest spot with the orchestra of Bunny Berigan. Clarinettist and bandleader Artie Shaw witnessed her performance and was so impressed that he promptly hired her as main female vocalist to perform alongside the great Billie Holiday.

Though their styles and repertoire differed considerably, Billie was very supportive and became a powerful (though sadly short-lived) influence on young Helen. When Billie was forced to leave the band in October 1938 due to race-related issues (much to Shaw's disgust), Helen was thrust into the limelight as the band's sole vocal star. Performing out of the Blue Room of New York's Hotel Lincoln, she recorded the first of some 40 sides with Shaw, including two tracks that made it to Number 1 in the U.S. charts: "They Say" and "Thanks for Everything". Though Helen was not, perhaps, a jazz singer in the truest sense, she brought to her songs a wistful 'girl-next-door' quality that no other singer of the time possessed in equal measure. The femininity and warmth of her voice and the clear, emotional phrasing of her lyrics were never more effectively expressed than in the Tin Pan Alley ballads showcased by the Shaw orchestra, notably Rodgers & Hart's "I Didn't Know What Time It Was", "What's New", Jimmy Van Heusen's "Deep In A Dream" (which reached Number 3 in the charts) and "Melancholy Mood" (from the Broadway musical 'Very Warm For May').

Helen's vocals contributed in no small measure to the success and popularity of the Artie Shaw orchestra and she herself became a national favorite. However, when Shaw impulsively disbanded the organisation in November 1939, Helen found herself momentarily unemployed. Benny Goodman, who was notorious for his off-hand attitude towards his singers, seized the opportunity for a bargain and hired her at half her previous salary. Thus began the second phase of Helen's career which lasted until 1941. She made 54 recordings with the Goodman band, many of them arranged by the brilliant Eddie Sauter who tailored many songs specifically for her voice, including "How High The Moon", Gershwin's "The Man I Love" and , another Number 1 hit, "Taking A Chance On Love", by Vernon Duke. After two years, Helen felt herself unable to cope any further with Goodman's abuse and left to join trumpet playing bandleader Harry James in what became a very productive collaboration.

Unlike her previous employers, James didn't merely utilize Helen as a band vocalist, but as jazz critic George T. Simon put it, he built "the arrangements around his horn and Helen's voice, establishing warmer moods by slowing down the tempo so that two, instead of the usual three or more choruses, would fill a record ...many an arrangement would build to a closing climax during Helen's vocal, so that she would emerge as its star" (p.270, "The Big Bands", 1968). Helen recorded several top hits with the band, notably "Skylark", "I Don't Want To Walk Without You" and "I've Heard That Song Before". She was frequently paired with the band's main male vocalist, Buenos Aires-born crooner Dick Haymes, performing duets such as "Long Ago And Far Away". At this time, Helen was also showcased in several colourful motion pictures as part of 'Harry James and His Music Makers', singing one of her most enduring numbers (and the title of her autobiography, co-written with Bill Libby) "I Had The Craziest Dream" in Springtime in the Rockies (1942). The film starred Betty Grable, who eventually became Mrs. Harry James. Helen, who had been romantically involved with James, left the band in late-1943 to pursue a solo career.

During the next few years, Helen free-lanced, playing in clubs and theatres and teaming up with Haymes for a popular radio show. As the big band era drew to a close, she became less active as a recording artist, though, in 1955, Helen briefly rejoined the James orchestra to record some of their earlier hits together on a new compendium LP, entitled 'Harry James in Hi Fi'. In the early-'60s, she went on tour with the Sam Donahue-led orchestra of Tommy Dorsey, then, in 1964, with Frank Sinatra. Helen had a stroke in 1980 but still went on to work on her final album, 'Now and Forever', which was released in 1983. Rheumatoid arthritis eventually necessitated her retirement, and she died in July 1999 at the age of 82. To this day, Helen Forrest is regarded by many as the most outstanding female vocalist of the swing era.