Keely Smith

Dorothy Jacqueline Keely (March 9, 1928 – December 16, 2017), professionally known as Keely Smith, was an American jazz and popular music singer, who performed and recorded extensively in the 1950s with then-husband Louis Prima, and throughout the 1960s as a solo artist. Smith married Prima in 1953. The couple were stars throughout the entertainment business, including stage, television, motion pictures, hit records, and cabaret acts. They won a Grammy in 1959, its inaugural year, for their smash hit, "That Old Black Magic", which remained on the charts for 18 weeks. Early years Smith was born in Norfolk, Virginia; her ancestry was Irish and Cherokee. Jesse Smith, her stepfather, was a carpenter, and her mother took in laundry to earn money to buy gowns for Smith to wear when she performed. Career When Smith was 11 years old, she sang regularly as a cast member of The Joe Brown Radio Gang program on a Norfolk station. At age 14, Smith sang with a naval air station band led by Saxie Dowell. At 15, she got her first paying job with the Earl Bennett band. She saw Louis Prima perform in New York City in 1949. They recorded together in 1949 and married on July 13, 1953.