Background
She was born Jessie Lee Frealls in Bunkie, Louisiana, and raised in Beaumont, Texas. Her mother refused to let her join gospel singer Lillian Glinn on tour.
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Bonnie Lee
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In 1958 she moved to Chicago and chose the stage name Bonnie Lee, working as both a dancer and singer.
Career
Known as "The Sweetheart of the Blues", she is best remembered for her lengthy working relationships with Sunnyland Slim and Willie Kent. David Whiteis, who interviewed Lee in researching his book Chicago Blues: Portraits and Stories stated, "she was one of the last of her genre, the big-voiced woman blues singer fronting a Chicago band."
She learning to play the piano as a child. She later toured with the Famous Georgia Minstrels, meeting both Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and Big Mama Thornton.
Two years later she signed a recording contract with J. Mayo Williams"s Ebony Records.
Williams insisted on billing her as Bonnie "Bombshell" Lane on her first single, "Sad and Evil Woman." She disliked the name. After the single failed to sell, she returned to Chicago jazz and blues nightclubs.
In 1967 Lee first appeared on a bill with the pianist Sunnyland Slim, and their working arrangement included residencies at several Chicago clubs. At the end of the 1970s, she recorded further singles, released by AIrway Records (owned by Slim Records).
Backed by Willie Kent and the Gents, ahe became a regular performer at B.L.U.E.S., a noted Chicago club, for many years.
There she sang her most famous numbers, "I’m Good" and "Need Your Love So Bad."
In 1982, performing with Zora Young and Big Time Sarah as Blues with the Girls, she toured Europe, and they recorded an album in Paris. In 1992 Lee performed on Magic Slim"s album 44 Blues, with John Primer. Her album Sweetheart of the Blues was released under her own name by Delmark Records in 1995, and three years later another collection, I"m Good, was issued.
Lee died on September 7, 2006, at the age of 75, after years of poor health.
