Artist: Cab Calloway

Cab Calloway was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he was a regular performer, and became a popular vocalist of the swing era. His niche of mixing jazz and vaudeville won him acclaim during a career that spanned over 65 years. 

Calloway was a master of energetic scat singing, and led one of the most popular dance bands in the United States from the early 1930s to the late 1940s. His band included trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Jonah Jones, and Adolphus "Doc" Cheatham, saxophonists Ben Webster and Leon "Chu" Berry, guitarist Danny Barker, bassist Milt Hinton, and drummer Cozy Cole. 

Calloway had several hit records in the 1930s and 1940s, becoming known as the "Hi-de-ho" man of jazz for his most famous song, "Minnie the Moocher", originally recorded in 1931. He reached the Billboard charts in five consecutive decades (1930s–1970s).

In 1931, Calloway recorded his most famous song, "Minnie the Moocher." It was the first single record by an African American to sell a million copies. In 1993, Calloway received the National Medal of Arts from the United States Congress. He posthumously received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. His song "Minnie the Moocher" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 and added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry in 2019. Three years later in 2022, the National Film Registry selected his home films for preservation as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant films".

In 1927, Calloway joined his older sister, Blanche Calloway, on tour for the popular black musical revue Plantation Days. His sister became an accomplished bandleader before him, and he often credited her as his inspiration for entering show business.

Calloway spent most of his nights at Chicago's Dreamland Café, Sunset Cafe, and Club Berlin, performing as a singer, drummer, and master of ceremonies. There he met and performed with Louis Armstrong, who taught him to sing in the scat style. He left school to sing with the Alabamian’s band. In 1929, Calloway relocated to New York with the band, and they opened at the Savoy Ballroom on September 20, 1929. While Calloway was performing in the revue, the Missourians asked him to front their band. In 1930, the Missourians became known as Cab Calloway and His Orchestra. At the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York, the band was hired in 1931 to substitute for the Duke Ellington Orchestra while Ellington's band was on tour, and their popularity led to a permanent position.