R.I.P.: Joni James, '50s Singer Sold 100M Records

 

Joni James, the soul-bearing pop singer who had hits in the 1950s with “Why Don’t You Believe Me?,” “How Important Can It Be?” and a cover of Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” has died. She was 91, reports Billboard.

James died February 20 of natural causes in a hospital in West Palm Beach, Florida, her family announced.

Signed by MGM Records, the waiflike Chicago native came out of the gate with “Why Don’t You Believe Me?,” which reached No. 1 on the three Billboard charts in late 1952 and stayed there for weeks.

Her recordings of “Your Cheatin’ Heart” in 1953 and “How Important Can It Be?” in 1955 each made it to No. 2, and “Have You Heard?” climbed to No. 4 in 1953.

She had other top 10 hits with “You Are My Love” (No. 6 in 1955), “My Love, My Love” (No. 8 in 1953) and “Almost Always” (No. 9 in 1953).

Nicknamed the “Queen of Hearts,” the down-to-earth James recorded more than 40 albums and sold more than 100 million records during her career. She had a longing sound and style that reviewers described as tender, confidential and urgent, and Barbra Streisand was an admirer who often performed “Have You Heard?” at auditions.

One of six children, Giovanna Carmella Babbo was born in Chicago on Sept. 22, 1930. Her father died when she was 5. She studied ballet and was set to dance in Bloomer Girl, a Broadway musical that had come to her town, but those plans were scuttled by an emergency appendectomy.

Still planning on becoming a dancer, she picked up money singing at a beer garden in Indiana and in Chicago hotels and clubs. She performed “Let There Be Love” on WGN-TV accompanied by pianist Johnny Ray and was signed by Lew Douglas of MGM Records.

“Why Don’t You Believe Me” was originally titled “You Should Believe Me,” but James tweaked the lyrics, and, with the help of a 23-piece orchestra, she found immediate success and sales of more than 2 million records.

She put her career on hold for nearly two decades to care of Tony Acquaviva, her husband, conductor, arranger and manager who had taken ill with diabetes. The two MGM recording artists had married in 1956 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.

Her second husband was Bernard Schriever, a retired Air Force general who shepherded the development of the intercontinental ballistic missile program and established a framework for the Air Force’s space program. They were married from 1997 until his death in 2005 at age 94.