LaVern Baker

Delores LaVern Baker (born Delores Evans; November 11, 1929 – March 10, 1997) was an American rhythm and blues singer who had several hit records on the pop charts in the 1950s and early 1960s. Her most successful records were "Tweedle Dee" (1955), "Jim Dandy" (1956), and "I Cried a Tear" (1958).

Baker was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. The Hall remarked that her "fiery fusion of blues, jazz and R&B showcased her alluring vocals and set the stage for the rock and roll surge of the Fifties". From 1955 to 1965, 20 of her songs made the R&B charts. Over the years, Elvis Presley recorded eight Baker songs.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, United States, as Delores Evans, she was raised in nearby Calumet City. Under her mother's new surname, McMurley, Delores – on December 23, 1948, at the age of nineteen, in Cook County, Illinois – married Eugene Williams.

Baker began singing in Chicago clubs such as the Club DeLisa in 1946, often billed as Little Miss Sharecropper, and first recorded under that name in 1949, leading to a recording deal with that title for National Records in 1951, shortly before it folded. She changed her name briefly to Bea Baker when recording for Okeh Records in 1951, switched to Delores Baker, and then was billed as LaVern Baker when she sang with Todd Rhodes and his band in 1952.

In 1953, Baker signed with Atlantic Records as a solo artist, her first release being "Soul on Fire". Her first hit came in early 1955, with the Latin-tempo "Tweedle Dee", which reached number 4 on the R&B chart and number 14 on the national US pop chart. It sold more than one million copies. Georgia Gibbs recorded a note-for-note cover of the song, which reached number 1; subsequently Baker made an unsuccessful attempt to sue her for $250,000 (equivalent to $3,004,658 in 2025) and petitioned Congress to consider such covers copyright violations, citing Gibbs and Vickie Young as copying her arrangement and vocal style. Her request spurred Charles Diggs to lead a Congressional investigation into song theft.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.