Takeoff
Humes’s professional music career officially started when she was 17 but unofficially started when she was approximately 15, when Louisville-area blues guitarist Sylvester Weaver heard her sing in her Sunday school band and introduced her to a recording executive. Soon after, she went to St. Louis and recorded “If Papa Has Outside Lovin’, Mama has Outside Loving, Too.” She was eager to continue performing and recording right away, but her mother insisted she graduate high school first. After graduating from Central High School in 1927, she went to New York, the home of jazz greats such as Bud Powell and Duke Ellington, to visit family. One night she went to a nightclub and convinced the manager to let her sing one song—from that moment, her career began.
“We went to a nightclub called the Spider Web. Al Sears’ band was playing, and my friends asked if I could sing a number”
- Helen Humes, as reported by Marc Zakem in The Courier-Journal, June 5, 1979
The manager offered her a spot at the club to sing and get paid $35 dollars a week, which in her mind “was all the money in the world.” So instead of staying in New York only two weeks with her family, she stayed for two years.