(ENTERTAINMENT MUSIC) Photos and songs of singer Ivory Joe

Sale 2663 - Lot 212

Price Realized: $ 406

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900

(ENTERTAINMENT--MUSIC.) Photos and songs of singer Ivory Joe Hunter. 7 items: 4 photographs, 2 typescript leaves and one manuscript leaf; generally moderate wear. Various places, 1954-1966 and undated

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Additional Details

Ivory Joe Hunter (1914-1974) was a popular blues and R&B singer and pianist through the 1940s and 1950s, and staged a comeback as a country artist in the late 1960s. "Ivory Joe" was his legal name at birth, not a stage name.

Offered here are 3 photographs of Hunter. A 5 x 7-inch snapshot from 1954 shows Hunter on stage with his band, identified by surname in manuscript with the caption "My new band." An 8½ x 6½-inch portrait of Hunter is by Valerie Wilmer of London. A publicity portrait is inscribed "To Alex, All my love, Bettye and Ivory Joe" (possibly by his Memphis-based country manager Bettye Berger).

A fourth photo, an Atlantic Records publicity shot of Hall of Fame singer Ruth Brown, is inscribed by her to Hunter: "To Ivory Joe, one of the grandest guys I shall ever hope to meet, in or out of the thing called show business. Thanks for all your kindness. Yours, Ruth Brown."

Finally, the lot includes the lyrics to two songs. Two are typescript carbons: "Until My Dying Day" signed in type by Hunter, 6 July 1966; and "Have You Ever Had the Blues" by Hunter, inscribed "3 pieces, real blues." Also included is a manuscript of "Until My Dying Day" on a worn sheet of legal paper, in the same hand as the inscription. We have found no indication that these two songs were ever recorded or published.