Donna hightower biography

Biography.
Donna Hightower, African American jazz and gospel singer, songwriter, and activist, was born Luebertha Hightower on December 28, 1926, in Caruthersville.
Donna Lubertha Hightower was an American R&B, soul and jazz singer and songwriter, who recorded and released albums for the Decca and Capitol labels.

•

Social Media

By Michael Corcoran, on August 20, 2013 on the michaelcorcoran.net at www.michaelcorcoran.net/archives/2798

Musicians move to Austin to rejuvenate their careers. Yet when Donna Hightower decided to relocate here 23 years ago, it was with thoughts of retirement. The Missouri-born singer, who signed her first recording contract with Decca in 1951, had made a pretty good living in Europe, where she went to sing for a week at a swank London jazz club in 1959 and stayed 31 years.

But God came to her one day in 1990, she said, and told her to move to Austin, a town she had never visited before. “I didn’t know it was supposed to be a music town or anything,” Hightower said in 2006 from the North Austin home she purchased on arrival. “Didn’t really know anything ’bout Austin except that it was in Texas.” And Austin didn’t know anything ’bout the ageless jazz firecracker, who was billed as Little Donna Hightower when she toured the “chitlin circuit” with Louis Jordan and B.B. King in the 1950s.

Hightow

•

Donna Hightower

Donna Lubertha Hightower (December 28, 1926 – August 19, 2013) was an American R&B, soul and jazz singer and songwriter, who recorded and released albums for the Decca and Capitol labels. Later in her career she was based in Europe, where she had a hit in 1972 with "This World Today is a Mess."

Birth and Death Data: Born December 28, 1926 (Caruthersville), Died August 19, 2013 (Austin)

Date Range of DAHR Recordings: 1951 - 1952

Roles Represented in DAHR: vocalist

= Recordings are available for online listening.
= Recordings were issued from this master. No recordings issued from other masters.

Recordings

•

More Notable & Famous Death

Donna Lubertha Hightower was an American R&B, soul and jazz singer and songwriter, who recorded and released albums for the Decca and Capitol labels. Later in her career she was based in Europe, where she had a hit in 1972 with "This World Today is a Mess."
She was born in Caruthersville, Missouri, to a family of sharecroppers. She listened to singers such as Ella Fitzgerald, but never planned to have a singing career and by the age of 23 had been married, had two children, and divorced.
While working in a diner in Chicago, she was heard singing by Bob Tillman, a reporter with the Chicago Defendernewspaper, who then won her a booking as a singer at the Strand Hotel. Initially billed as Little Donna Hightower, she won a recording contract with Decca Records and recorded her first single, "I Ain't In The Mood", in 1951.
During the mid 1950s she recorded R&B songs, for RPM Records, often accompanied by the Maxwell Davis Orchestra as on her 1955 version of "Hands Off".She toured widely in the US, with Louis Jordan, B. B. King, Johnny Mathis, Della

Company	Matrix No.	Size	First Recording Date	Title	Primary Performer
Decca	81697	10/9/1951	I ain't in the mood	Donna Hightower	vocalist
Decca	81698	10/9/1951	Cry	Donna Hightower	vocalist
Decca	82244	2/3/1952	Honest and truly	Donna Hightower	vocalist
Decca	82245	2/3/1952	I found a new love	Donna Hightower	vocalist
Decca	82635	4/4/1952