Singer covered songs by black artists: Performed for Israeli troops in 1949 after war

NEW YORK -- Georgia Gibbs, a versatile singer who starred on thepopular show "Your Hit Parade" and reached the top of the charts inthe 1950s with covers of songs by black artists, has died. She was87.

Ms. Gibbs died Saturday at New York's Memorial Sloan-KetteringCancer Center, family friend Leslie Gottlieb said. The cause wascomplications from leukemia.

Among her 15 Top 40 hits, mostly for Mercury Records, was thetango-based "Kiss of Fire," which went to No. 1 in 1952.

But she is known historically -- and controversially -- as one ofthe whites who gained success in the 1950s covering rhythm and blueshits by black artists, sometimes upstaging the original versionswith sanitized lyrics.

"Tweedle Dee," an adaptation of LaVern Baker's R&B hit, reachedNo. 2 in 1954, while "Dance With Me Henry," another R&B cover,reached No. 1 in 1955 with cleaned-up lyrics.

The original, "Roll With Me, Henry" or "The Wallflower," was byEtta James as an "answer song" to the hit "Work With Me, Annie."

"At that time you weren't allowed to say 'roll' because it wasconsidered vulgar," James said in a 1987 Associated Press interview."So when Georgia Gibbs did her version, she renamed it 'Dance WithMe, Henry' and it went to No. 1 on the pop charts."

Besides a stint on "Your Hit Parade," the radio and TV show thatshowcased the most popular songs each week, Ms. Gibbs was a regularon programs hosted by Garry Moore, Jimmy Durante and Danny Kaye andwas a frequent guest on other radio and early television varietyshows.

STARTED IN BOSTON BALLROOMS

Other memorable recordings of Ms. Gibbs included the novelty "IfI Knew You Were Coming, I'd've Baked a Cake" in the early 1950s, andher last Top 40 record, "The Hula Hoop Song," in 1958.

Ms. Gibbs, along with Pat Boone, Connie Francis and others, wasprofiled this year in the book Great Pretenders: My Strange LoveAffair With '50s Pop Music, by music critic Karen Schoemer.

In a review for the New York Times, singer Nellie McKay calledthe book's subjects "seven of the most neglected performers of the20th century."

Ms. Gibbs, born Freda Lipschitz in Worcester, Mass., in 1919,began singing in Boston ballrooms as a teenager, using the nameGibbons, later becoming Georgia Gibbs. As her star rose, Moore beganintroducing her on the air as "Her Nibs, Miss Georgia Gibbs," whichbecame a popular phrase.

Although Ms. Gibbs was semiretired after 1960, her singing careerspanned more than 60 years, "a remarkable and enduring talent, andvery persistent," Gottlieb said.

A highlight of Gibbs' life, Gottlieb said, was performing forIsraeli soldiers in 1949, after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, whichhelped establish the Jewish state.

Ms. Gibbs was married to Frank Gervasi, an author and World WarII correspondent for United Press, who died before her. Survivorsinclude a grandson and a brother.