Lucia Pamela
Lucia Pamela (May 1, 1904 in St Louis, Missouri – July 25,
2002, Los Angeles, California) was an American musician,
bandleader, and eccentric. She is remembered today largely for
an album and coloring book concerning an imaginary trip to the
moon.
Pamela studied at the "Beethoven Conservatory of Music and
Voice" in Germany. She joined Flo Ziegfeld's "Broadway Follies"
after her return to America. She was voted Miss St. Louis in
1926.
She was featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not for memorizing a
record 10,000 songs. She led the all-girl orchestra and Odeon
Theatre house band the Musical Pirates, said by some to be the
first all-female orchestra, and hosted radio programs including
The Encouragement Hour, Kansas City, and Gal About Town, Fresno.
She produced only one album, Into Outer Space With Lucia Pamela
(circa 1969, Gulfstream and later on L'Peg), whose songs are
mostly about an imaginary trip to the moon. The song "Flip Flop
Fly" was featured on the radio by Bob and Ray in 1973, but the
album was all but forgotten before being reissued in 1992 (on
the Arf! Arf! label, recorded from a vinyl source and produced
by Irwin Chusid) to greater acclaim.
She also produced a cartoon coloring book, Into Outer Space with
Lucia Pamela in the Year 2000. In 1994, the pop group Stereolab
recorded a tribute to her, "International Colouring Contest", on
their album Mars Audiac Quintet; the intro of the song includes
a voice sample of Pamela herself.
Lucia Pamela died in 2002, age 98, in Los Angeles.
Later that year, Tony Kushner wrote a short play about Lucia
Pamela called "Flip Flop Fly." The play imagines Pamela meeting
Queen Geraldine of Albania (who also died in 2002) on the moon.
This article is
licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
It uses material from the
Wikipedia article "Lucia Pamela".
Lucia Pamela links
Buy Henry Flynt CDs at Amazon.com
Lucia Pamela Article @ Riverfront Times
Lucia Pamela Tribute by Danielle Lemaire
Lucia Pamela @ SpaceAgePop.com

