- Posted with permission of Susan Stordahl Porter
- Ina Ray Hutton—not exactly who everyone thought she was.
I'm quite late to this story, which aired last fall on Studio 360. But, having been turned on to it, I want to say: don't miss.
It's by KUOW's Phyllis Fletcher, and it begins: "Ina Ray Hutton was a stone cold fox."
Hutton was a swing band leader in the 1930s, a "blond bombshell" backed by a bunch of female musicians known as the Melodears. As Fletcher discovered, decades after Hutton's death, through a combination of accident and intuition, Hutton was also part black.
I don't want to give too much more away. You should know that this piece won the Edward R. Murrow Award. It also deserves some sort of prize for Best Use of Badonkadonk in a Public Radio Broadcast. LISTEN.
