Cool Singers Jazz Music » Jazz Singers on the Radio » Jo Ann Greer

Last Sunday (5 May) David Jacobs played a very nice, jazzy, track by Jo Ann Greer, That Certain Feeling. Apparently she was a Hollywood singer who dubbed the singing voice for several actresses. There is almost no information about her on the web. Does anyone have any biographical details?

When I was at Davidson College, Les Brown and his Band of Renown performed one night in the late 50's. His singer was Jo Ann Greer. I knew her name since I knew she dubbed a lot for many actresses, esp. Rita Hayworth. I had a 45 rpm record of "The Heat is On" from the movie, "Miss Sadie Thompson". Yes, it was her beautiful voice on the recording. You might go into a search engine and look for Les Brown and see if it leads you into more about Jo Ann Greer. I did ask her to sing the aforementioned song, but she said that she couldn't sing it legally for 10 years.

Thanks John,

I found an interesting forum thread that mentions Jo Ann Greer and Rita Hayworth and a short list of compilation cds that have tracks featuring her.

Hello,
I just received an email from Hugh, asking me to contribute some further information on Jo Ann. Nothing could please me more and also I would like to start a thread on another singer, Martha Mears, who also did vocal dubbing in the 1940's for many film stars.

Jo Ann Greer was well known to Hollywood casting people from the days of her marriage to Freddie Slack in the 1940's and herlater long employment with Les Brown and his Band of Renown. She was still singing with the band as late as 1976. I met her for the first time in San Francisco in 1975 or 1976 although we had spoken regulary for long hours on the telephone for over a year.

When Rita Hayworth returned to work in Hollywood from a failed European marriage, she was determined to do her own singing in motion pictures. Morris Stoloff told me than he pieced together something like 34 tracks of Rita singing "I've Been Kissed Before" but the composite lacked punch because Rita could not sustain notes well for the big finish. Rita also had a strange way of prouncing words when she sang. "April" became "Apreel" for example.

Joan (aka Jo Ann) was hired not only for her great way with a song but also because she had a slight lisp as did Rita. She'd dubbed for Charlotte Austin in a Frankie Laine film and later dubbed for Esther Williams in JUPITER'S DARLING, June Allyson in THE OPPOSITE SEX ("A Perfect Love" only), May Wynn in CAINE MUTINY, Gloria Grahame in NAKED ALIBI and Susan Kohner in IMITATION OF LIFE. But she was primarily hired to dub for Rita in AFFAIR IN TRINIDAD, MISS SADIE THOMPSON, PAL JOEY and an unused track for FIRE DOWN BELOW. She did lots of V-disks with Les, radio with Bob Hope in 51-53. Record collectors and radio buffs collect these tracks with Les Brown.

In SADIE, the character was not supposed to be a very good singer, so Jo Ann threw away all the notes using a very carefree approach in recording the soundtrack. When Columbia VP in charge of production, Harry Cohn, heard the tracks he said: "Listen, I'm paying for singers, I want singing." All the soundtracks were remade. Columbia Pictures paid Jo Ann more than Metro paid for dubbers, $500 per song whether used or not because the studio never revealed the musical numbers were dubbed. Metro paid less for singers like Anita Ellis because they got album credit.

I believe Jo Ann remained with Les Brown until he retired, perhaps 1980. She mentioned she had scoliosis of the spine (curvature)but I do not know if that hasented her retirement. Jo Ann lived in North Hollywood and passed away in 2001 in her late '70's. Adorable lady with absolutely no ego. Hassan

Thanks a lot, Hassan. Very interesting.

I have been recently putting my very large collection of Jazz.Swing , Big Bands etc on to my computer and started to put all my Les Brown and his band of Renown on to the computer.
The first LP was a 2 LP recording of a concert "At the Hollywood Palladium" in 1953. I took special interest in the vocalist Jo Ann Greer and then found I had more recordings with her with Les Brown . I contacted Dave Pell the lead tenor sax player with the band at the time and asked him what had become of her.He gave me some more info on her and I have suggested to a friend of mine in the record industry he gathers together some of her recordings in order to release a CD. What does anybody else think?

I would love to have a Jo Anne Greer CD. I hope this project gets off the ground.

My name is Greg Stout and Jo Ann Greer was my father's first wife. My dad, Stanley E. Stout, played first trumpet for Les Brown. I have a picture of a double album which shows a backdrop picture of the band playing live at the Hollywood Paladium with Jo Ann Greer singing in the foreground.
I also met her personally backstage when my wife and I attended a concert at UC Irvine in 1985. I was surprised to hear that she kept in touch with my grandmother and had kept up with my father's life since they were divorced within a couple years of their marriage.

Since my father married my mother he never spoke about her and I don't know what year they were married or divorced. When I met her it struck me that she recognized my smile as that of my father's. My father died in San Diego in 2000. Since my father's passing I also made contact with Les Brown Jr.

I agree. There should be more recognition given to Jo Ann as she was truly a great singer.

I was in the Air Force in 1957 at Palm Beach AFB and there was this beautiful, wonderfully talented lady singing at the Officers Club in April 1957 with Les Brown. Also with the show ws Butch Stone and Stumpy Brown. It was a great show and she was wonderful. I happened to be looking through a PBAFB newspaper from 1957 and saw her name, Jo Ann Greer. I looked it up on Google and found this site.

Just heard a few tunes by Jo Ann Greer, on a Les Brown and His Band of Renown album feature Julie London, June Christy, and Ms. Greer. A wonderful voice, very much like a young Doris Day with spectacular phrasing.

Jeff Perren