Georgia Lee was a jazz and blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 singer from Cairns, Queensland

Cairns, Queensland

Cairns is a regional city in Far North Queensland, Australia, founded 1876. The city was named after William Wellington Cairns, then-current Governor of Queensland. It was formed to serve miners heading for the Hodgkinson River goldfield, but experienced a decline when an easier route was...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

Born as Dulcie Rama Pitt, her father was of Jamaica

Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

n descent and her mother was Indian, Australian Aboriginal, Islander and Scottish. With her sisters Sophie and Heather Pitt, she formed the Harmony Sisters and performed as part of the U.S. Service Office Show, touring Queensland to entertain US troops during 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...

.

After the war she took the name Georgia Lee and moved south to work in the cities and later in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. She performed and recorded with many artists and bands including Graeme Bell

Graeme Bell

Graeme Emerson Bell AO MBE is an Australian Dixieland and classical jazz pianist, composer and band leader...

, Geraldo, Bruce Clarke, Port Jackson Jazz Band, George Trevare and the Max Williams Quintet. and toured with Nat King Cole

Nat King Cole

Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...

. She performed on TV on Graham Kennedy

Graham Kennedy

Graham Cyril Kennedy, AO was an Australian radio, television and film performer, often called Gra Gra and The King of Australian television.-Childhood:...

's In Melbourne Tonight

In Melbourne Tonight

In Melbourne Tonight, also known as "IMT", was a highly popular nightly variety television show produced at GTV-9 Melbourne from 6 May 1957 to 1970....

and Bandstand

Bandstand (Australia)

Bandstand was an Australian musical/variety television show which screened from November 1958 to 1972. It was produced at the studios of TCN-9 in Sydney and eventually became a national program as Nine Network expanded into other Australian cities in the early 1960s.Bandstand was created by Nine...

She is credited with being the first Indigenous Australian artist to record blues songs. Her album Georgia Lee Sings the Blues Down Under may have been only the second album to be released by an Australian woman and was the first Australian album recorded in stereo. In 2009 it was added to the National Film and Sound Archive

National Film and Sound Archive

The National Film and Sound Archive is Australia’s audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national collection of audiovisual materials and related items...

's Sounds of Australia registry.

Lee died on 23 April 2010, aged 89, in a Cairns nursing home.

Georgia Lee sang "Downunder Blues" in the documentary and cd, Buried Country: The Story of Aboriginal Country Music.

Lee's niece Wilma Reading

Wilma Reading

Wilma Reading is a singer from Cairns, Queensland.Reading begun her singing career in 1959 after singing for friends in a Brisbane jazz club. She has performed on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, had a residency at New York's Copacabana nightclub, and toured with Duke Ellington...

 is also a notable singer.

Discography

• Georgia Lee Sings the Blues Down Under (1962) Crest
• "It's A Lovely Day Tomorrow" (1961) Rex
• "Graeme Bell
  Graeme Bell
  Graeme Emerson Bell AO MBE is an Australian Dixieland and classical jazz pianist, composer and band leader...
  
   Jazz Concert: Eps 1 and 5" (1949)
• "Graeme Bell Jazz Concert: Eps 10 and 14" (1949)
• "Graeme Bell Jazz Concert: Eps 19 and 23" (1949)
• Bruce Clarke Quintones - "St Louis Blues" (1951) Jazzart
• Bruce Clarke Quintones - "Blue Moon" (1951) Jazzart

External links

• Listen to an excerpt of Georgia Lee singing 'Yarra River Blues' on australianscreen online
• 'Georgia Lee sings the Blues Down Under' was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia Registry in 2009