Excerpt from 'The Rocky Road', by Rockin Dave
I put on my headphones and listened to Lavern Baker singing Jim Dandy. I recalled how, towards the end of the 1960s, Lavern Baker went overseas to entertain US servicemen in Vietnam, but in 1969 she developed pneumonia and moved to the Philippines to seek treatment. Her intended short stay lasted some two decades.
She had a fascinating life. She was signed to Atlantic Records as a solo artist, in1952. Then, in1953, she achieved success on R&B charts with her single, Tweedlee Dee, and became Atlantic’s first Pop Top-20 hit, also appearing in Alan Freed’s movies, Rock, Rock, Rock and Mr Rock & Roll. She struck lucky again in 1955 when, in the R&B charts, she came out with Jim Dandy, and later released her biggest pop hit, I Cried a Tear. In 1958, she left Atlantic Records and signed with Brunswick Records. Her star continued to rise as she was featured on Ed Sullivan's historic R&B Revue special. She also recorded a duet with Jackie Wilson for Brunswick Records, Think Twice. She was happy in her success, had a husband she loved, and her youthful, statuesque beauty and powerful voice were garnering her a lot of interest from movie producers. The world was her oyster. “I had been blessed many times over and was living the dream life. I was untouchable, or so I thought,” said Lavern in an interview. "I wish I could recall it better. It all feels like a movie that I watched a long time ago now. The years have a way of wilting memories around the edges. At least, that's what the years did to me”, she admitted.
Life though, has an uncanny knack of kicking you in the teeth. Shortly after her single with Jackie Wilson was released in 1966, Lavern went on a USO tour to Vietnam to entertain the troops. While performing through the rainy season of storms and flooding, Lavern caught pneumonia. Like the professional she was, she continued to perform until her lung collapsed. She was airlifted to a remote hospital in Thailand, where she recuperated after three long months. In the meantime, the tour had continued without her and then returned to the US, also without her. She didn't know what to do, or who to go to, or anything. "The tour was gone and I was in a strange country where a telephone service was practically non-existent,” she recalled. She hitched a lift with farmers on wagons to Bangkok, where she thought she could at least find some Americans. She found some US marines on leave there, and they took her to the air force base. She had had to slog through rice paddies in water up to her shoulders in some places to get to Bangkok, so by the time the marines got her to the base, she’d had a relapse. Lavern was once again airlifted out, this time to a naval hospital in the Philippines. There she spent another four months recovering from her second bout of pneumonia, along with dysentery, probably picked up from the local water which she had had to drink on her arduous journey.
When she was finally well enough to be released, Lavern was in a quandary as to what she should do next. She had a husband back home who had no idea where she was, or even if she was alive. She knew that she had to raise some money to get a commercial flight out of Manila back to the US, so she asked the commanding officer of Subic Bay marine base if she could get a job. He put her in the NCO club as a singer, and there she began saving money whilst constantly trying to get in touch with her husband back home. Unfortunately, in Lavern's absence, her husband had assumed the worst and had taken steps to have her declared dead! He had also assumed the rights to all of her record releases and contracts and was making a nice chunk of money from them. When Lavern tried through the US embassy in Manila to get help in returning home, she found out that she was officially deceased! Nobody helped. She was stuck in the Philippines!
An unsuccessful bid to change copyright laws that would essentially prohibit white artists from singing R&B cover tunes was proposed to US Congress by Lavern Baker during the early 1950s. Luckily for Elvis, Pat Boone and many others, not to mention the rest of us, that effort failed. She had by now, become used to her little home in Olongapo City, just up the road from Subic, She had friends there, and she had her job. She decided to quit tearing herself up and accept the fact that she wasn't going back to the US anytime soon. She wasn't even sure that she wanted to go there anymore as her own husband had just declared that she was dead so that he could make some money off of her records. He never even tried to find out where she was or even if she was alive. Lavern Baker ended up living and working in the Philippines for the next 22 years, during which time she raised several children and worked as a performer for the marines, and was later made entertainment director of a nightclub at the Subic Bay military base.
Lavern had struggled with diabetes for many years, and, as the disease progressed, she was forced to have both of her legs amputated. After two years of healing, physically and emotionally, she began to play the club circuit again, singing from her wheelchair. Her determination had been the principal factor in her initial success, but it was now clearer than ever. In 1988, she made her triumphant return to the US, starring in Atlantic Records' 40th anniversary show at Madison Square Garden in New York. From there it was back to the world of success, with a musical track in the movie Dick Tracey, a lead role in the Broadway musical Black and Blue, a comeback record Woke up this Mornin', and a great guest appearance at the Chicago Blues Festival. After enjoying her renewed success for the greater portion of the 1990s, Life dealt her another blow. Lavern Baker died on 10 March 1997 in New York City. Lavern Baker influenced contemporary artists such as Bonnie Raitt, who considered her career vital in the crossover between R&B and rock & roll. Raitt told Steve Jones of USA Today that Jim Dandy was one of the greatest records she had ever heard as a kid. Lavern Baker believed in luck. She certainly had lots of luck, she had the best and the worst of luck.