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Artist
Jessie Mae Robinson
12+ albums
bluesr&b
about
Jessie Mae Robinson (née Booker, October 1, 1918 – October 26, 1966) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist whose compositions included many rhythm & blues and pop hits of the 1940s and 1950s, including "Black Night", "I Went To Your Wedding", and "Let's Have a Party". Jessie Mae Booker was born in Call, Texas, but was raised in Los Angeles where she started writing songs in her teens, and met and married Leonard Robinson. After a few years she began pitching her songs to performers and music publishers. Her first song to be recorded was "Mellow Man Blues" by Dinah Washington in 1945. She found commercial success with Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson's "Cleanhead Blues" in 1946 and then "Old Maid Boogie", an R&B chart number one in 1947. Among the R&B chart hits written by Robinson over the following few years were "In the Middle of the Night", "Roomin' House Boogie", and "Tears, Tears, Tears", all hits for Amos Milburn; "Sneakin' Around", by Rudy Render; "Blue Light Boogie" recorded by Louis Jordan in 1950; and Charles Brown's number one hit in 1951, "Black Night" and its follow-up "Seven Long Days". In 1952, Damita Jo recorded Robinson's song "I Went To Your Wedding", which was then covered more successfully by both white pop singer Patti Page, whose version went to number one on the pop chart, and country star Hank Snow. The song's success allowed Robinson to become "one of the few black songwriters to break the colour barrier", and the first female African-American memb