Rare Beverly Kenney Footage Surfaces

From the late Beverly Kenney’s niece Lisa Guild comes this, the most extensive footage yet to surface of the gifted but tragic pop-jazz singer who died by her own hand on April 13, 1960. This is an undated (1960 is the guess) appearance on Playboy After Dark, hosted by Hugh Hefner. She sings “Everything Happens to Me” (written by Dennis Adair, recorded by Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday and Chet Baker, among others), “Mountain Greenery” (by Rodgers and Hart), gets Hef to join in on Gus Kahn’s “Makin’ Whoopee” and closes the segment with a beautiful “Wee Small Hours” (written in part by Johnny Mercer)."‘Mountain Greenery" is featured on Snuggled On Your Shoulder, a collection of previously unreleased 1954 sessions--possibly intended as her demo for the Roost label--that also includes four live, undated vocal-and-piano performances.

 

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‘The Cry of Anguished Protest, The First of Many Wrought From Me’: Read our exclusive feature on Beverly Kenney’s life, career and recordings in TheBluegrassSpecial.com’s April 2011 issue

 

Beverly Kenney, ‘The Things We Did Last Summer,’ recorded in 1954, possibly as a demo for the Roost label, which signed her and released her early albums. This recording was first released on a collection issued in Japan but now available domestically as Snuggled On Your Shoulder, with bonus live tracks previously unavailable eleswhere.