Born in Pittsburgh in 1914 but raised in Washington, D.C., Billy Eckstine began singing at the age of seven and entered many amateur talent shows. He had also planned on a football career, but after breaking his collar bone he made music his focus. He left Howard University after winning an amateur contest in 1933 and began singing in nightclubs and with dance bands. After working his way west to Chicago during the late 1930s, Eckstine was hired by Earl Hines to join his Grand Terrace Orchestra in 1939. Though white bands of the era featured males singing straightahead romantic ballads, black bands were forced to stick to novelty or blues vocal numbers until the advent of Eckstine and Herb Jeffries (from Duke Ellington’s Orchestra). In 1944 Eckstine formed his own band, which in its three-year existence gave strong impetus to the new bebop style by featuring the talents of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis and others. His Orchestra was the first bop big-band, and its leader reflected bop innovations by stretching his vocal harmonics into his normal ballads. Despite the group’s modernist slant, Eckstine hit the charts often during the mid-’40s, with Top Ten entries including `Prisoner of Love´. On the group’s frequent European and American tours, Eckstine also played trumpet, valve trombone and guitar. Though he was forced to give up the band in 1947 (Gillespie formed his own bop big-band that same year), Eckstine made the transition to string-filled balladry with ease. He recorded more than a dozen hits during the late ’40s, including `My Foolish Heart´ and `I Apologize.´ He was also quite popular in Britain, hitting the UK Top Ten twice during the 1950s. Eckstine returned to his jazz roots occasionally, recording with Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, and Quincy Jones. He recorded several albums for Mercury and Roulette during the early ’60s (his son Ed was the president of Mercury), and he appeared on Motown for a few standards albums during the mid-’60s. After recording very sparingly during the ’70s, Eckstine made his last recording in 1986. He died of a heart attack in 1993. Research, transfers and Digital Restoration by Peter Dempsey.