Blanche Calloway revisited after discovery of her childhood home at 2216 Druid Hill Avenue.
I learned so much about my aunt just by visiting this home. It made her history come alive for me. It was such an incredible experience. I felt I had to share it with others.
Unfortunately the city of Baltimore is going to demolish the home in just a few days.
I wanted to get this history out before it was too late!
2. Blanche Calloway lived
at 2216 Druid Hill Ave.
from 1915-1921.
She is considered the
architect of 20th Century
popular music because
unlike the other singers of
her day, Blanche stepped
beyond the footlights into
the audience to sing and she
introduced “call and
response” from her band
members. This moved
music from just being about
performance to more about
a storytelling experience.
3. “She made a conscious break with the
tradition established by the classic blues
singers such as Bessie Smith or Ma Rainey
who stood forward on-stage and sang over
the footlights directly at the audience…
instead, Blanche developed numbers in
which she interacted directly with
members of her supporting band.” Alyn
Shipton from the book Hi De Ho, Oxford
Univ. Press, 2010
Above is Ma Rainey with the typical
position of the singer with the band. To
the right is Blanche’s style being used by
her brother Cab, who is seen here with
the Nicholas Brothers. Notice how the
performance is in the middle of the
audience apart from the band in the back.
This fundamentally changed the
audiences experience and became more
popular with Rock and Roll and is done by
nearly all Hip Hop artists when they
encourage call and response or audience
participation in the performance.
4. Blanche was so talented that from the age of 15
she would sing in the rafters during musicals that
would come to Baltimore.
She won the Murray talent
show contest 2 years a row
but refused to leave
because her father had
died and she wanted to
help her mom.
5. In 1921, at age 19, Blanche joined the traveling
show of Eubie Blake’s Shuffle Along.
From these steps she began
her career which took her from
Chicago to New York,
Washington DC to Miami and
then back to Baltimore.
6. In 1931, Blanche Calloway became the first female, to
direct and lead an all male orchestra.
7. Just 4 years after leaving this home Blanche was a
superstar, pictured here in 1925, before Cab had even
graduated High School.
Imagine writing and composing songs for a dozen
instruments, choreographing, singing, booking gigs, hiring
and firing musicians, dealing with racism, transportation
challenges, and being a woman in the 1920s-30s leading a
group of 14 men and touring in South!
8. In 1933, Blanche’s band
was ranked 9th in the
nation. She was only 5
spots behind Louis
Armstrong but ahead of
such famous band
leaders as Jimmy
Lunceford, Chick Webb
and Bennie Moten. She
performed at the Apollo
Theater in NY from
1935-38. Her most
famous song was
“Growlin Dan.”
9. Blanche had a run in with Jim Crow laws in the South.
In 1936, she was arrested in
Yazoo, Mississippi for using the
white women’s restroom. While
she was in jail, an orchestra
member stole the money and
abandoned the band. Blanche
had to sell her car to get back to
New York. This was a
devastating blow to her career.
10. In the early ‘50s she moved to Washington, DC where she
discovered Ruth Brown who eventually became known as the
“Queen of R&B.”
Ruth Brown
poses with
boxing champ
Sugar Ray
Robinson and
her manager,
Blanche
Calloway.
11. In the late 50’s she moved to Miami where she became a Disc
Jockey and later managed WMBM for 10 years before moving
back to Baltimore.
Blanche became
the only known
African American
female commercial
radio station
Executive Director
of her time.
WMBM (Where
Ministry Blesses
Many) is still on the
air in Miami Beach
today.
12. Despite appearing in ads like this, Blanche was active with
the NAACP, the Congress of Racial Equality, and served on the
board of the National Urban League.
In 1968 she formed
her own mail order
cosmetics company
called “Afram House”
which she ran until
she died in 1978 at the
age of 76.
