Known best among African-American audiences early in his career, Herb Jeffries was a singer and actor who starred as a singing cowboy in a series of Western movies in the 1930s and performed with major jazz artists in the 1940s. Lauded for clearing a path against segregation in Hollywood, he received a Golden Boot award from the Motion Picture & Television Fund in 1996 and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004.

Born in Detroit, he sang locally and as a teenager moved to Chicago where he sang in clubs until he signed on with the Earl Hines Orchestra in 1933. He toured and made records with that band and then in the 1940s with Duke Ellington. According to 'The Hollywood Reporter', his popular recordings of the era included 'Flamingo', 'In My Solitude' and 'I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good'. He performed with Joe Turner and Dorothy Dandridge in Ellington's 'Jump for Joy' revue in Los Angeles in 1941. After World War II military service, his recordings included 'When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano' and 'Basin Street Blues'.

His movie career began in 1937 in the film 'Harlem On the Prairie' and continued with 'Rhythm Rodeo' (1938), 'Two-Gun Man from Harlem' (1938), 'The Bronze Buckaroo' (1939), and 'Harlem Rides the Range' (1939). After the war, he spent time in France performing in nightclubs and back in Hollywood in 1957 he appeared in title role of the musical 'Calypso Joe' opposite Angie Dickinson. In the 1960s and '70s he appeared in American network television shows including 'I Dream of Jeannie', 'The Name of the Game', 'The Virginian' and 'Hawaii Five-O'.

In 1995, Jeffries recorded an album of classic Western songs, 'The Bronze Buckaroo Rides Again' and the following year he played himself in a TV movie titled 'The Cherokee Kid' starring comedian Sinbad, James Coburn and Burt Reynolds. He performed at festivals and charity events and spent his latter days in Wichita, Kansas, where he died of heart failure aged 100 in 2014.

Herb Jeffries

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