Susan Reed

Background

She was born in Columbia, South Carolina, the daughter of Isadora Bennett and Daniel Reed, respectively a theater publicist and actor.

Career

A regular on the New York folk scene, Life magazine dubbed her "the pet of Manhattan nightclubbers" in 1945. Although she originally aspired to becoming a painter, she was discovered by Barney Josephson, owner of the Café Society club in Greenwich Village, who booked her to appear there. Her performances of folk ballads and other traditional songs found immediate success, and she appeared on radio and television shows with Burl Ives.

She made her debut at the Town Hall in New York in 1945, at the age of nineteen, followed by a national tour.

In 1947, Alan Lomax wrote of her, with Ives, Woody Guthrie and Josh White, as one of the foremost performers in the "enthusiasm for native balladry and folklore that is running through the country from coast to coast". In 1948, she appeared with Gene Krupa in the film Glamour Girl (retitled Night Club Girl in the United Kingdom), in which she played a folk-singing country girl brought to sing in New York nightclubs.

The movie directly inspired English folk singers Shirley and Dolly Collins. Reed appeared regularly on television and radio in the early and mid 1950s, and recorded for the Columbia, Radio Corporation of America Victor, and Elektra record labels.

Her albums included an adaptation of Joseph Canteloube"s Chants d"Auvergne (Songs of the Auvergne, 1950), Susan Reed Sings Old Airs from Ireland, Scotland and England (1954) and Susan Reed (1956).

She also acted on television, and appeared on Broadway in Shooting Star, a musical about Billy the Kid. Her popularity diminished as her relatively mannered singing style became less fashionable. According to Bruce Eder at Allmusic, "she was neither fish nor fowl, too popular for the most serious folk audiences and too folky for mainstream audiences.".

In the late 1950s she ran afoul of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and was blacklisted as a communist sympathiser.

She ended her career in the early 1960s. She established an antiques shop in Greenwich Village, and later sold ethnic handicrafts and clothes in Nyack, New New York

She still gave occasional performances into the 2000s. In 2006, her recordings for Elektra were reissued on Civil Defense. She died in 2010 at a Long Island nursing home, at the age of 84.

Works

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  • Susan Reed on the Power of Corporate Diversity

    ( In the age of increasing globalization, corporate diver...)

  • Automatic data processing risk assessment: Susan K. Reed
  • Linking Adults with Community: Promoting Civic Engagement Through Community Based Learning (By: Susan C. Reed) published: July, 2008
  • Up, Up, Up! With CD (Audio) By Reed, Susan ( Author ) 2011 ) Paperback
  • Up, Up, Up! (A Barefoot Singalong) by Susan Reed (2011-05-01)
  • The Diversity Index: The Alarming Truth About Diversity in Corporate America...and What Can Be Done About It by Susan E. Reed (2011-08-29)
  • Dance and the Nation: Performance, Ritual, and Politics in Sri Lanka With DVD DANCE AND THE NATION: PERFORMANCE, RITUAL, AND POLITICS IN SRI LANKA WITH DVD By Reed, Susan A. ( Author )Apr-12-2010 Paperback
  • Up, Up, Up! With CD (Audio) UP, UP, UP! WITH CD (AUDIO) By Reed, Susan ( Author )May-01-2011 Paperback
  • Up, Up, Up! With CD (Audio) (A Barefoot Singalong) by Susan Reed (2010-03-01)
  • Up, Up, Up! With CD (Audio) UP, UP, UP! WITH CD (AUDIO) By Reed, Susan ( Author )Mar-01-2010 Hardcover
  • Dance and the Nation: Performance, Ritual, and Politics in Sri Lanka (Studies in Dance History) by Susan A. Reed (2010-04-30)
  • Ranito Verde: A True Story about My Grandmother's Frog RANITO VERDE: A TRUE STORY ABOUT MY GRANDMOTHER'S FROG By Reed, Susan Pfeiffer ( Author )Nov-24-2010 Paperback
  • ADHD: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Defining and Understanding a Diagnosis of ADHD by Susan Reed (2013-05-11)
  • Ranito Verde: A True Story about My Grandmother's Frog by Susan Pfeiffer Reed (2010-11-24)
  • Susan E. Reed'sThe Diversity Index: The Alarming Truth About Diversity in Corporate America...and What Can Be Done About It Hardcover2011

Connections

Friend:

Abbey Theatre