Chick Bullock was a popular American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 and dance band

Dance band

Dance band can be one of several kinds of musical ensemble:* British dance band* Dansband, a Swedish pop genre* A Eurodance band...

 vocalist, most active in the 1930s. He recorded some 500 tunes over the course of his career. Bullock was mostly associated with the ARC

American Record Corporation

ARC, the American Record Company, also referred to as American Record Corporation, or as ARC Records, was a United States based record company...

 group of labels (Melotone

Melotone Records

Melotone Records has been the name of two unrelated record companies.* Melotone Records , Australia* Melotone Records , United States of America...

, Perfect

Perfect Records

Perfect Records was a United States based record label of the 1920s and 1930s. It was a subsidiary of Pathé Records, producing standard lateral cut 78 rpm disc records for the US market....

, Banner

Banner Records

Banner Records was a United States based record label of the 20th century.Banner Records was launched in January 1922 by the Plaza Music Company of New York City. Banner was an extremely popular label in the 1920s, concentrating on popular music of the day. To this day, Banners are often found all...

, Oriole

Oriole Records

Oriole Records may refer to:* Oriole Records * Oriole Records...

, Romeo

Romeo Records

Romeo Records was a record label based in the United States of America in the 1920s and 1930s. It was a subsidiary of Cameo Records, manufactured to be sold exclusively at the S. H. Kress & Co. department store chain...

). Many of his records were issued under the name "Chick Bullock and his Levee Loungers".

Bullock belonged to select group of mostly freelance vocalists who sang the vocal refrains on hundreds of New York sessions, which included Smith Ballew

Smith Ballew

Smith Ballew was an American actor, sophisticated singer, orchestra leader, and finally, a Western singing star....

, Scrappy Lambert

Scrappy Lambert

Harold "Scrappy" Lambert was an American dance band vocalist who appeared on hundreds of recordings from the 1920s to the 1940s....

, Elmer Feldkamp, Irving Kaufman

Irving Kaufman (singer)

Irving Kaufman born Isidore Kaufman Syracuse, New York was a prolific early twentieth century singer, recording artist and Vaudeville performer...

, Paul Small, Arthur Fields

Arthur Fields

Arthur Fields was a United States singer and songwriter.He was born Abraham Finkelstein in Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, but grew up mainly in Utica, New York. He became a professional singer as a youngster...

, and Dick Robertson. Some of these vocalists were also musicians, but their singing was more often featured. (All of the above had records also issued under their own name, and in case of Ballew, actually had a working orchestra for a couple of years.)

Bullock rarely performed live because his face was disfigured due to an eye disease. He was born in Montana

Montana

Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...

 to William and Emily Bullock, both of whom were immigrants from England. He began his career in vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 and sang in movie palaces. His career as a studio musician took off in the late 1920s, and in the 1930s he sang with musicians such as Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...

, Luis Russell

Luis Russell

Luis Russell was a jazz pianist and bandleader.Luis Carl Russell was born on Careening Cay, near Bocas del Toro, Panama, in a family of Afro-Caribbean ancestry. His father was a music teacher, and young Luis learned to play violin, guitar, trombone, and piano...

, Cab Calloway

Cab Calloway

Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City where he was a regular performer....

, Bunny Berigan

Bunny Berigan

Rowland Bernard "Bunny" Berigan was an American jazz trumpeter who rose to fame during the swing era, but whose virtuosity and influence were shortened by a losing battle with alcoholism that ended in his early death at age 33. He composed the jazz instrumentals "Chicken and Waffles" and "Blues"...

, Bill Coleman

Bill Coleman

William Johnson Coleman was a jazz trumpeter from the swing era.He had his musical debut in 1927. Coleman's first recordings were with the Luis Russell orchestra, but all solos on record went to the rising star Henry "Red" Allen. This led to Bill Coleman's departure from the band. By 1935 he...

, Jack Teagarden

Jack Teagarden

Weldon Leo "Jack" Teagarden , known as "Big T" and "The Swingin' Gate", was an influential jazz trombonist, bandleader, composer, and vocalist, regarded as the "Father of Jazz Trombone".-Early life:...

, Tommy Dorsey

Tommy Dorsey

Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...

, Jimmy Dorsey

Jimmy Dorsey

James "Jimmy" Dorsey was a prominent American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, trumpeter, composer, and big band leader. He was known as "JD"...

, Joe Venuti, and Eddie Lang

Eddie Lang

Eddie Lang was an American jazz guitarist, regarded as the Father of Jazz Guitar. He played a Gibson L-4 and L-5 guitar, providing great influence for many guitarists, including Django Reinhardt.-Biography:...

. Bullock's recordings proved so popular that he used pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

s for some recordings, including the name Sleepy Hall.

In the 1940s the World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 recording ban essentially ended Bullock's career. He moved to California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 and took up real estate

Real estate

In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...

.