Betty Bonney was a 17-year-old veteran big band vocalist when he joined Les Brown and his orchestra in 1941. He sang praises from New York Yankees star Joe DiMaggio, who was hit by a major league record of 56 games.
While performing at the club in Almonk, New York in Westchester County that summer, the band “gets into a winning streak,” Brown told Newsday in 1990, saying, “If Joe gets another hit, or if he's still in the game without a hit, we'll announce it from the bandstand every night.”
When Dimaggio piled up hits from mid-May to mid-July, New York City disc jockey Alan Courtney and band arrangement Ben Homer wrote “Joltin' Joe Dimaggio.”
The song was also regularly heard on the band's radio program and was released in September as a 78 rpm record. According to Billboard Magazine, it was 1941's 93rd best-selling single.
The song begins with Bonnie asking, “Hello Joe, do you know whatdaya?” Clarinetist Ben, who plays the role of Dimaggio, responds with the most, “I'll go here because I need a hit.”
She will sing later:
He started a famous baseball streak
It has aglow for us all
He's just a man, not a freak
Joltin' Joe Dimaggio.
Wingalden, a columnist for New Brunswick's Central News, praised not only the song, but also Bonnie's performance. “We really should see Miss Bonnie numbering in person to see it,” he wrote, “if you get what we're driving.”
“It's not just her voice that puts the song on top,” he added.
Dimaggio threatened to sue Courtney “using his name,” Brown told Newsday, but relented when he learned that Courtney “didn't have a cent.”
Bonnie passed away on January 29th in Calabasas, California. She was 100 years old.
Betty Jane Bonnie was born on March 8, 1924 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and grew up primarily in Norfolk, Virginia. His father, Albert, was a railroad purchase clerk. Her mother, Doris (Anderson) Bonnie, supported Betty's music career from an early age. She accompanied her to a local radio gig, starting at age 6 and ran her as a teenager with the South-based band Auburn Cavaliers.
In 1941, when she was still a teenager, Betty sang alongside Charlie Spibach and Jimmy James' band before joining Mr Brown, where she replaced Doris Day. (Ms. Day will return to 1943.)
“Joltin' Joe Dimaggio” was featured in an episode of the 1994 Ken Burns documentary series “Baseball.” Along with Terry Cashman's “Talkin' Base (Willie, Mickey and the Duke), it became one of the lasting songs about baseball players. “Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song)” by Treniers. And then “Did you see Jackie Robinson hit that ball?” Count Basie and his orchestra.
Bonnie recorded other songs in brown bands, including “Lament to Love,” “All That Meat and No Potatoes” by Fats Waller, and “He's 1-A in the Army (and He's A-1 in My Heart).”
She left Les Brown in June 1942 shortly after marrying Army officer Douglas Broyles Jr. However, after Broyles went abroad in World War II, she resumed her singing career with the bands of Jan Savitt, Jerry Wald and Frankie Carl. Later, as a solo act, she recorded several songs from the RCA. It was featured on the Billboard cover in 1945, including “Ho Hum (Wish I Someone in Love).”
“She had every break that any thrush could ask,” the magazine wrote.
In 1949, Bonnie toured a nationwide production of Broadway's hit musical comedy, “High Button Shoes.” The following year, bandleader Sammy Kay hired her and gave her a new name: Judy Johnson will use it for the rest of her career.
“Sammy had something about changing the singer's name for good luck,” she told Newsday.
Her time as a vocalist with Kay was short. Under her new name, she sang in Sid Caesar's groundbreaking television sketch comedy series “Your Show of Show” from 1950 to 1953, and was the star of the 1953 nightclub act “Judy Johnson and Her Dates.”
“Leah, few people know her as Betty,” her son Trevor said in an interview. “She was as comfortable as Judy, so she didn't fix them.” Personally, she was known as Judy Lindsey.
In 1954, Bonnie divorced Broyles and married Mort Lindsey, who became the bandleader of Mort Griffin's television talk show. She made occasional radio, television, club and stage appearances, including replacing Helen Gallagher with Miss Adelaide in the 1955 revival of Guys and Dolls at the New York City Center.
She also worked on The Judy Garland Show, where Lindsay led the band, replacing Garland during studio rehearsals in 1963 and 1964.
In the 1980s and 90s, Bonnie occasionally sang with Griffin and his band (conducted by Lindsey) at various venues, including Griffin's Resort Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California.
In addition to Trevor, a son with Mr. Lindsey from her marriage, she was also survived from that marriage by another son, Steve. Daughter Bonnie Dunn was Mr. Broyles from her marriage. 3 stepchildren; 7 grandchildren. And many great grandchildren. Mortlinsey passed away in 2012.
Trevor Lindsay said his mother's father pushed her to sing for money when she was five years old.
“Mom tells the story of him taking her to the bar all day long and saying, 'I'll do your little thing,'” he said.
He added, “She never forgives him.”
