Abbey Lincoln was the last of the great pillars of jazz. She sang of happiness and sorrow, of life, and overcoming hate in a voice inspired by Billie Holiday, but one that ultimately became iconic in its own right.
This is her story.
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Abbey Lincoln was born Anne Marie Wooldridge on August 6th, 1930. The 10th of 12 children growing up on a farm in Michigan, she was well aware of the family’s impoverished status from an early age. “I never remember being carefree or irresponsible. I have always been aware of all of my circumstances.”
Her only solace was a piano, and the school choir, which she joined at an early age. Lincoln set herself apart here with her ability to convey a range of emotions through her performance, akin to idols like Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, and Coleman Hawkins, who she recalls listening to on a hand-cranked Victrola.
It wasn’t long before Lincoln was composing her own songs; songs that played to her great talent. At 14 years old, her mother moved her to Kalamazoo, a small city still relatively bigger than the farmland on which she grew up. Here, she started singing for local bands, eventually winning an amateur competition when she was 19.
As the 1950s came around, Lincoln grew tired of the cold, and the lack of opportunity in such a small town. She took singing gigs for $5 a night, while working as a cleaner to maximise her earnings. 1951, and Lincoln finally had enough money to move to Los Angeles and hire an agent. He booked her jobs in Alaska and Hawaii, where she proved so popular that she remained for two years.
When she returned to LA, she met lyricist Bob Russell, who was determined to make Lincoln a star. It led to her taking the stage name Abbey Lincoln in 1956, and producing her first album with Benny Carter’s band that same year: Abbey Lincoln’s Affair: A Story of a Girl in Love.
Success at this point, however, was coming as more a result of her looks rather than talent. Russell took her to Chicago, where she landed a role in the film The Girl Can’t Help It. Appearing in the iconic dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in Gentleman Prefer Blondes, Lincoln quickly became a sex symbol.
It was not what she wanted. She fired Russell, who had become her manager, and refocused on her music. So it was that she would come to meet some of the most progressive jazz artists of the era, including drummer Max Roach, who would guide her to the prominence she deserved.
The pair would collaborate on some of Lincoln’s most definitive work, starting with That’s Him!, an album that truly defined her talent. It marked the end of a long journey in which Lincoln had been searching for her voice. Backed by a powerful bebop lineup including Miles Davis’s piano/bass duo of Wynton Kelly and Paul Chambers, her emotional strength saw Lincoln become an instant star. She would produce two more albums that decade: It’s Magic, and Abbey is Blue.
Roach – now Lincoln’s husband – had not only helped her find artists who could reinforce her talent, but he also imbued in her a desire to see social justice enforced during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. She joined Roach on the album We Insist!, which would come to be seen as one of her most defining influences on not just the industry, but the world as a whole.
“When everything is finished in a world, the people go to look for what the artists leave. It’s the only thing that we have really in this world — is an ability to express ourselves and say, ‘I was here,'” she told NPR.
Throughout the rest of the 60s, Lincoln would continue to etch out her unique style. She would only record two more albums that decade, though they were no less powerful for their scarcity. Straight Ahead was a momentous assault on the injustices directed at the black community in America. It was so successful that one racist critic lashed out and called her a “professional Negro”. The critic’s publication received many letters of complaint shortly thereafter.
In 1970, Lincoln and Roach divorced, and so too did their professional lives separate. Lincoln returned to California to focus primarily on her art, before a 1975 trip to Africa with South African singer Miriam Makeba. There, she was celebrated for her political stance, and was given honorary names in recognition of her endeavours.
Returning to America, she taught theatre and singing, while occasionally appearing in film and television. Her primary career took a backseat until 1989, when she met French producer Jean-Philippe Allard, who signed her to Verve Records. Incredibly, she signed a 10-record deal.
The first of these was released the following year. The World is Falling Down returned Lincoln to stardom, and she would remain prominent on the scene until the release of her final album, Abbey Sings Abbey, in 2007. Her voice was fading by that point, but her songwriting only became stronger, bringing about an evolution and innovation in Lincoln’s style.
Abbey Lincoln died on August 14th, 2010, only eight days after her 80th birthday. When she passed, so too did a great age in jazz history. The scene will never be the same without her, but is sure to continue to remain strong thanks to her incredible influence.
“I think that’s what really a substantial work is; it’s forever. It’s the truth now and it was the truth then, and it will be the truth tomorrow.”