Joséphine Baker

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About Joséphine Baker

Few lives were as lived as Josephine Baker’s. Born a St. Louis urchin, Baker was being courted by the artistic and ruling classes of the 1920s by her late teens. She escaped the racism of America to bare her body and soul in France, and while oft-recalled for her evocative dances in nothing but a banana chain’s veil, Baker was also one of her era’s most expert interpreters of the chanson. Baker’s vocals echoed the freedom and sensuality that permeated her life. She even died mythically, gloriously--drifting to sleep surrounded by rave reviews of a 1975 concert feting her half-century on stage.

HOMETOWN
St. Louis, MO, United States
BORN
June 3, 1906
GENRE
Pop

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