Hadda Brooks

Hadda Brooks was an American pianist, vocalist and composer. Her first single, Swingin the Boogie, which she composed, was issued in 1945. She was billed as Queen of the Boogie. She sang at Hawaiis official statehood ceremony in 1959 and was reportedly asked for a private audience by Pope Pius XII.

She was born Hattie L. Hapgood in 1916 and raised in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles, by her parents, who had migrated to California from the South. Her mother, Goldie Wright, was a doctor and her father, John Hapgood, a deputy sheriff. Her grandfather, Samuel Alexander Hapgood , moved to California from Atlanta, Georgia, and proved to be an enormous influence on Brooks. He introduced her to theater and the operatic voices of Amelita GalliCurci and Enrico Caruso. In her youth she formally studied classical music with an Italian piano instructor, Florence Bruni, with whom she trained for twenty years.

Source: Wikipedia